Ghosts
by colormetheworld
Summary: How could she let her go, and how could she deny her? Be the monster that destroys your child, or the martyr that carries her home broken? —Untitled universe. A sequel.
1. Unburied

"Katherine!"

The only person who doesn't turn around at the name is the baby, and that is only because she is facing the other way in her stroller, securely fastened in.

Maya, Zoe and Maura all turn around at the cry, looking to see who would have the audacity to use such a sacred name.

The woman is old, tall, with fine white hair, and her eyes are fixed on Maya with hungry intensity.

The old man standing next to her puts his hand on her shoulder, opening his mouth to shush her. He shakes his head sadly, and looks up in their direction. When he sees Maya, his entire body seems to freeze. Maura sees his mouth move over the name as well.

She knows who these people are, and she knows why they have reacted this way, though knowing does not make this any less horrible.

Maya is staring at her grandparents as though she is transfixed. As though they too are spectres. Maura wonders if, after spending the majority of her life marking familial traits by photograph, it is now possible for Maya to see something different in the real flesh and bone people in front of her.

Maura wants to flee. She wants Jane with her. But she does what she thinks is right, and turns the stroller around, going back to the man and woman who are standing like statues twenty feet away.

She says the first thing that comes to her mind. "Small world!"

Zoe looks at her oddly, and she knows it's because her voice sounds cheerful, as though these people are long lost friends.

The man (his name is Howard, Maura remembers the way Jane had growled it) glances at her.

"Who are you?" He asks, not angry, just irked, like she has come to stand in front of the TV during his favorite show.

"My name is Maura Isles," she replies, resisting the urge to pull Maya close to her. "I'm-"

"She's our mom," Zoe says pointedly. She is looking at Maya, her mouth a thin line of disapproval.

The woman's eyes snap to Maura's She looks both surprised and disgusted. Her lips curl into a very complicated shape, and her similarity to her daughter and granddaughter decreases somewhat. Sandra. Maura pulls the name up out of the depths of her memory.

Howard and Sandra Hodgkinson. Katherine's parents.

"Are you-" Maya's voice is small and uncertain. "Are…"

"We're your grandparents, Maya," Sandra says, and Maura watches them stare at each other, each one greedy and entranced. She wants the two of them for a long minute, until the baby, in her stroller, starts to fuss at the lack of movement. Maya and Sandra don't notice, they don't seem to be noticing anyone except for each other, and Maura wants to rip her oldest daughter away from this and drag her home. She wants to pretend that none of this happened, and go back to the argument they were having before all of this happened.

She would gladly take the argument.

Maura does the only thing that is possible in the moment.

She invites Maura's biological grandparents over for dinner.

"We're parked just outside of Macey's," Maura says, while Zoe shoots daggers at her, and Maya looks like she's been offered something that is both too amazing, and too good to be true.

Sandra looks at her husband, her eyes darting around his face in excitement, looking for any sense that he might decline.

"That sounds fine," he says. We're in the city for the next two evenings and didn't have any other plans.

Sandra turns back to look at Maya. "This is your mother?" She asks, as though Maura doesn't exist. "Well what happened to Janet?"

"Mom got remarried," Maya says.

"Her name is _Jane_ ," Zoe says. Maura can tell she's bordering on fury, and she puts her hand gently on the back of her neck, the same way she would for the detective.

"We'd love to come to dinner," Howard says, as though Zoe hasn't spoken. "We'd love to come to dinner."

"Where are you parked?" Maura asks. It is easier at this moment to focus on the logistics, and not the look on Jane's face when they come through the door. Not the questions that both girls will have, or the reaction the Hodgkinsons might have when they learn of her youngest child's name.

"We're parked outside of Macey's as well," Sandra says. "We'll follow you, shall we?"

Maura nods. "Perfect."

…

…

When Maura and the kids come through the door thirty five minutes later, the house smells like lemon and rosemary, and a football game is blaring from the sitting room.

Jane comes around the corner, dish towel over her shoulder, hair in a messy, hastily done ponytail that lists a little to the left. Maura can't help smiling.

¨Hello!¨ Jane says. ¨Hello my loves. Wait until you see what Mama has whipped up for-"

And Jane's voice stops dead.

Katherines parents have entered the house behind them, and Jane looks over Maura's shoulder, and her body goes very, very still.

Before anyone can say anything at all, Sandra has pushed her way past Maura. She walks right up to Jane, and slaps her across the face. Hard.

"HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE TOLD US?!" She screams.

Her voice startles the sleeping baby in Maura´s arms, and she awakens with a jerk and little mewl of surprise.

Jane´s face snaps to the side and back with the force of the hit, but the rest of her body stays still.

¨Hey!¨ Zoe yells, taking a step forward.

Jane raises her hand, just to her waist, telling her to stop. She is looking at the floor, and her mouth works, like she´s tonguing the inside of her lip to check for blood.

¨She didn´t want to,¨ Jane says, not taking her eyes off the floor. ¨Her decision. Her death didn´t change that.¨

¨Like hell it didn´t,¨ Howard rumbles from behind Maura. He hasn´t run at Jane like his wife, but his expression says that he would very much like to. ¨We have a right to know.¨

¨No. You didn´t,¨ Jane says firmly. "I am her mother. It's my decision."

"Yours and whatever new whore you decide to marry. Already well on your way to two more I see."

Jane lifts her eyes to Sandra's for the first time. "Do not speak about Maura like that," she says lowly. "Ever. She's a wonderful mother."

"Pfft," Howard scoffs. "Yeah. Been wonderful since Katie was barely cold in the ground from what I understand."

"Hi!" Katie says from Maura's arms. It is her typical response when anyone says her name, and though both Howard and Sandra turn to look at her, neither seems to make the connection. Maura is glad about this. At least there is nothing more they have to tackle in that moment.

"Mama," Maya says. She has her arms crossed around herself, and she looks like she is about to cry.

Jane can tell this too, and she sets her jaw preemptively against whatever her daughter is going to say.

"Mama, we invited them for dinner. They're here for dinner."

Maura bounces Katie on her hip absently, trying to think of something that will smooth the moment over.

"Surely we can all be civil through a dinner," she suggests. "I think...if it means this much to Maya, we can all work on it. For her sake?"

Jane raises her eyebrows at Sandra, as if to say that she is not the person hitting others.

Sandra clasps her hands together.

"Yes," Howard says in response. "I think we can."

"My-my," Katie says. "Myyyy-my! Me!" Katie reaches out her arms to her sister, still oblivious to the tension in the room, and Maya takes her, smiling faintly as the little girl nuzzles against her.

Zoe has been hanging back by the front door since her mother was slapped, her hands deep in her pockets. At Maura's suggestion about dinner, she had shaken her head imperceptibly, and now she steps forward, her face a perfect match to Jane's at it's meanest.

"My little sister's name is Katie," she says.

And that is the end of that.

…

 _Kate wraps her arms around Jane's neck, giggling as the brunette blows raspberries on her of the things that she likes the most about her girlfriend is how easy one emotions flows so easily into another. Jane isn't like any other woman she's been with and she's definitely not like any other man. She is tough, and kind, and funny, and she looks at Kate like she's the most precious thing in the world._

" _Can you believe this is our bed?" Jane says against her ear. "This is our bed, in our apartment. If I don't want to get dressed, then I don't have to. I can walk around naked until dinner; I can eat dinner maked if I want to." Jane pulls back to look at her, propping herself up on her elbow._

 _Kate pushes some of her long hair away from her face so she can lean in for a kiss._

" _Just you?" She asks with a laugh. "Can't I eat dinner in the nude too?"_

" _No!" Jane says, sounding shocked. She looks serious, and confused that Kate would ask her such a thing. "Of course you can't."_

 _Kate frowns. "What? Why?"_

 _There is only the slight tug of Jane's lips to show that she is about to crack a joke. "If you're naked, I'm going to be on top of you," she growls, and with that she pushes Kate back against the sheet, kissing her hard._

 _And just like that, they are climbing steadily toward hot and heavy again._

" _God," she pants, as Jane' s long fingers slide between her legs. "What you do to me."_

" _The same thing you do to me," Jane breathes. "Can't you tell?"_

 _Kate goes to answer, but it comes out a groan. "This was a mistake," she laughs, already so close to anoint her orgasm that her thighs are shaking a little. "We shouldn't have moved in together...oh! Fuck, yes. There...You're going to kill me!"_

 _But Jane rocks her hips and tumbles them both down into oblivion together, and whatever she says as it happens, is lost in the happy explosion of of Kate's senses._

 _When she recovers, Jane is looking down at her, grinning from ear to ear._

" _What?" She asks, feeling herself blush._

" _You're gorgeous," Jane answers. "I hope our babies look just like you."_

 _This is enough to bring Kate fully back to earth with an unpleasant thump. "Babies?"_

" _Yeah," Jane is still smiling. "I want to have babies with you. Like...four...hundred. And I hope they're all just beautiful little copies of you."_

 _Kate sits up, pulling a sheet around herself, feeling her heartbeat jump a little erratically at Jane's words._

" _Katie?" Jane sits up too._

" _You've...thought about having kids with me?" She asks quietly._

 _There is a pause, and she knows that Jane is doing furious mental mathematics, trying to see where she went wrong._

" _Uh...yeah," she says finally. "You know...after we got settled somewhere. When we had more than a one bedroom apartment in the Meatpacking district. Yeah." She pauses again, and her eyes on Kate's back feel like lasers._

" _You haven't thought of us like that?" Jane's voice is small._

" _I…" Kate tries to think about how she wants to word her dilemma. "I think about us," she says finally. "I think about us living together for a long time, and, you know, getting a house or maybe...a dog." She grins. "Or like, a lizard or turtle that doesn't need to be walked."_

 _She can feel that Jane doesn't crack a smile without even turning around._

" _But no kids." Jane's voice has gone a little bit hollow, the way it does when she's hearing something she doesn't like._

 _Kate finally makes herself roll over to face her. "I don't know, Jane. We're...not that old. I just finished school, and I'm not even making any money yet. I might never make money at this."_

" _Of course you will," Jane says. "You take some of the most amazing photos that I've ever seen. Of course you will. And I'm not talking about tomorrow. I'm talking about someday."_

 _Kate rolls onto her back. "Someday," she says softly._

 _Jane snuggles in next to her, kissing her temple. "Talk to me, Kat. What's going on?"_

" _Do you think my parents will come around 'someday,' Jane?" She doesn't mean for her voice to crack, or for her tone to be so bitter, but she can't help it. "Will yours? And if the answer is no-" Kate cuts off Jane's protest, "then what kind of life is it to raise a kid whose own grandparents hate him."_

 _Kate closes her eyes, and tears spill onto her cheeks. "They hate me," she sobs, as Jane pulls her to her chest. "They'd hate our baby."_

" _Shhh," Jane murmurs into her hair. "Shhh, no. They don't hate you, beautiful. They could never hate you. You're amazing. They just don't understand."_

 _Jane pulls her hand through Katie's hair, murmuring softly until she quiets, and then she kisses her forehead._

" _I'm sorry," Kate says, sniffing. "I got our new sheets all snotty."_

 _Jane chuckles. "It doesn't matter. I get it. It was a big move. We just took a huge step, and then here I come with like seven more life changing ideas. I'm sorry. I'm an idiot."_

 _Kate smiles. "You're my idiot," she corrects. "Promise me that you'll be my idiot for a lot more time."_

 _There's that look again. Kate has never seen Jane look at anyone the way she looks at her._

" _Forever and ever, Katie. No matter what."_

…

…

We'll see her! We'll see our granddaughter or you will hear from our lawyer!

That was the last thing that the Hodgkinsons had said before storming out of the house. And although that effectively ended one argument, the one that arrived immediately after was no less fierce, and possibly even louder than the one that came before it.

Maya, fourteen years old and full of emotions that she does not have the ability to work through calmly. She screams at her mother with all the rage and fury that come with her fear.

 _How could you not tell them mommy was my bio mom?_

 _How could you not tell me they might want to see me._

 _How could you not think I might want to see them_!

Zoe had retreated to the second floor landing, holding holding Katie up at Maya like proof of something as she went. _This is your family! THIS is your family._ Not them! That is what she had been yelling.

Jane yelled too, though she wasn't crying. Maura could tell she was as close as possible without tipping the scale, but her own form of terror and anger kept her from doing so.

And Maura raised her voice, finally, at the end, telling everyone to stop shouting. She ordered all the members of her family to separate corners, demanding that they cool down.

Now, the house is eerily silent. As she pushes the door to her bedroom open, she can hear it sigh softly on its hinges. She wonders how long it has been doing that, without anyone having a chance to hear.

Jane is sitting cross legged on the bed, her head in her hands.

The cant of her shoulders tells Maura that she is not crying, at least not anymore. She goes to the bed and climbs up on it, kneeling behind her wife and pressing her thumbs deep into the knots of her shoulder blades.

"Your mother has come such a long way," Maura says, "Even in just the short time I've known her."

Jane sighs. "Yeah," she says. "I know."

Maura realizes that there will be no fight between the two of them over this. She smiles. For all her noise earlier, there was never really a question about what Jane would end up doing. Maura has seen her force herself to talk about Katherine, and force herself to stop talking about her, both for the needs of her children in the moment.

"She didn't want this," Jane says from between her fingers. "She didn't want this. Ever."

Maura sighs. She doesn't stop kneading. "Unfortunately, Jane," she says softly, "she's not alive anymore. Maya is. And she has questions we can't answer for her."

Another sigh. A minuature nod. "You're their mother, Mo," she says after a long moment. "You."

Maura bends to kiss the crown of Jane's head. "Thank you," she murmurs. "I needed to hear that."

"I love you," Jane says. It comes out like a confession. Tonight, that's what it is.

"I love you too, sweetheart."

"Will you talk to her? When she and I fight like that...we need time, I think."

Maura nods. She presses another kiss to the top of Jane's head, and then slides back off the bed.

"The Baby's down," she says. Go check her for me, will you?"

Jane is watching her go, a small, affectionate smile on her face. She nods.

"It's going to work out," Maura says.

And then, because she has spoken the words into existence, she has no choice but to believe that they are true.


	2. Old Haunts

"Mom?"

Jane and Maura are at the dining room table when Maya enters the kitchen. Maura is reading, and Jane is feeding Katie cheerios absently with one hand, scrolling through her phone on the other.

Maya's tone makes Maura look up from her reading, but Jane doesn't seem to notice.

"What's up, chick?" She asks distractedly.

Maya glances at Maura and then back at Jane. "Is it true that Mommy moved back to New York to be with her parents for an entire month when I was a baby?"

Jane looks up sharply. Her hand, which was on it's way to Katie's mouth with a cheerio, freezes in mid air.

"Mama!" Katie scolds. "Tiny cookie!"

Jane doesn't react. She is looking at Maya with an expression that is impossible for Maura to read. She wonders if Jane herself even knows what she's feeling.

Finally, she blinks. "You were six months old," she says. "We'd just moved to Chicago, and CPD offered me a job in the drug unit."

"Mommy didn't want you to take it?" Maya asks.

"No," Jane says. "She thought it was too dangerous."

"And you said you'd rather be in the drug unit than be with her?"

Jane swallows hard, giving Maura the impression that she has had to physically restrain herself from giving the answer she wants to.

"No," she says, a little more firmly. "I didn't say that."

"Well what did you say?" Maya presses. "Why did she leave? Did you know that while she was home, she went on a date with a boy?"

Jane's head jerks just slightly, a little tic that she cannot suppress.

"Yes," she says. "Her parents set her up with a boy she'd known since childhood."

Maura hadn't heard this part of the story. She doesn't want to. She has no interest in Katherine's past as it does not pertain to her children or her wife. She folds her arms over her chest.

"Maya," she begins. "Why don't you-"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Maya breaks in. "Why didn't you tell me you fought badly enough that she left for an entire month? Did you even try to go and get her? Did she ask about me at all?"

The questions come rapid fire, and Jane looks as though they might as well be bullets.

"Maya," Maura tries again, feeling the need to protect, though she isn't sure her presence is helpful. "I know that these last few weeks have been difficult for you, honey. But that doesn't give you the right to talk to you mother that way."

Maya takes a steadying breath. "Why didn't you tell me that mommy left you."

Jane grinds her teeth for a moment. "It wasn't exactly a great bedtime story, My," she says finally. "I wanted to tell you guys happy things. I-"

"You didn't want to tell us things that made you look bad." Maya wields the words like weapons. They hit their mark, true as arrows.

Jane unconsciously pulverizes a cheerio in her fist. Katie's face falls at the sight.

"That is probably a little bit true," Jane says slowly, as though she would rather admit anything else. "It was really hard for me to be without her, and when she came back and we were all together again…" Jane shrugs. "It felt like it hadn't been real."

Maura wants to say something, to intervene on Jane's behalf. Her wife has been doing this a lot since the reappearance of Howard and Sandra: backing down when she and Maya fight, telling half stories about Katherine that always make Jane out to be the bad guy.

Maya has visited her grandparents twice in the last two weeks, and both times she has returned with an attitude that is aloof at best, and at worst, downright frosty.

"My grandfather showed me the article in the newspaper," Maya says. Her eyes have narrowed to little slits. "He showed me where you taunted Charles Hoyt. He said he came after mommy right after that. Is that right?"

"Maya!" Maura can't help herself. "That's enough!"

"So it's your fault she's gone!" Maya says over Maura, voice rising with her emotions. "If you hadn't"

But Jane stands quickly, nearly knocking over the chair as she moves toward Maya, her face is set and calm, and furious.

"Yes," she says lowly. "You're right. I know where you're going. If mommy had stayed in New York and we'd shared custody. If I'd been less prideful. If I'd woken up to the noise downstairs, or if I'd come home earlier so your mother didn't feel the need to let me sleep when the noise woke her up. You think you're the first person in this family to go through all of those?"

Jane holds out her hands. "Welcome to adulthood, Maya! You can drive yourself crazy with all of those what ifs. I have!" Jane counts them off on her fingers as she goes, and Maura has the sense that all of this has been bottled up inside of her for a long, long time.

"What if Katherine had let me go into the Drug unit instead of applying directly for my detective's badge? What if I'd gotten pregnant the first time we tried instead of the second? What if when I put in the transfer for Chicago, because that's where the photography journal was that offered her the job was, they said no? What if the day your mother went to the beach, I called in sick like I wanted to, and went on that date with Amanda Marcos instead?

"But while you're going through all of those scenarios that bring your mother back to you, remember that several of those universes don't include Zoe. They definitely don't include Katie, and they don't include Maura."

Jane pulls a hand angrily through her hair, looking like she is already full of regret for her outburst.

"Just remember who you're wishing away in the process," she says quietly.

For a moment, she and Maya just stare at each other. And then Maya turns and runs out of the kitchen.

Jane's whole body seems to deflate. She sinks back into her chair and puts a hand to her forehead.

Maura comes to put her arms around Jane's shoulders. She kisses the side of her head.

Katie, who has watched the entire interaction with wide, interested eyes, leans forward to Jane too.

"Mama," she says firmly, pointing to the little bowl of cheerios on the table.

"Ti-ny cook-ie," she says, drawing out each syllable as though she fears being misunderstood. When both parents just look at her, she puts on her most adorable smile.

"Pease?" She offers.

Jane snorts, lifting a cheerio to her lips. "Don't grow up," she tells the baby.

"Okee," Katie says happily.

 _Kate watches Jane move around the kitchen, pulling different ingredients out of the cabinet and fridge, muttering under her breath. She is twenty nine weeks pregnant, and on a quest to make 'the perfect sandwich.'_

 _Kate sits on the arm of the sofa, and watches her, thinking about how she's broken every single one of her rules._

 _Rule one: never kiss a girl. That one had not really been her fault. The day that Jane had saved her from a particularly nasty undertow, at her family's summer home on Cape Cod, she'd stopped breathing. Literally, she'd stopped breathing, and Jane had pressed her lips to Katherine's and given her mouth to mouth. Then she'd held her hair back while she vomited up sea water, rubbing small circles into her lower back until Kate had been able to catch her breath._

 _"You're okay," Jane had said, not letting her go immediately. "I got you."_

 _She should have thought about how close she came to death._

 _The only thing she could think about for days were Jane lips._

 _So, okay. Rule one is up in smoke. Rule two: Don't fall in love with a girl._

 _Well, that was also a rule that was ruined by Jane's lips._

 _Kate blushes just thinking about it._

 _"You okay, babe?" Jane has paused in her sandwich construction to look at her, eyebrows crinkled in concern._

 _"Yeah," she says. "I mean...yes. I'm fine I was just thinking about my rules."_

 _Jane grins. "Which one?"_

 _"Three," Kate says, and Jane mouths it along with her. "Don't allow yourself to hope."_

 _"Hey," Jane says, distractible. "Do you like the name Hope?"_

 _"Nah," Kate says. Hope Rizzoli sounds like a bad drama on TNT, doesn't it?"_

 _"Rizzoli?" Jane's eyebrows rise. They haven't come to an agreement about their daughter's last name. Jane offered to take Kate's, she offered to give Kate and the baby hers. Katherine had said no to both, trying in vain not to fall victim to another rule._

 _"Yeah," she says now. "She should be yours. We should be yours. right?"_

 _Jane beckons her over, and when she is close enough she puts her arms around Kate's waist. "It's okay to want good things to happen, baby," she says softly. "It's okay to hope for our life together to be great. It will be great. I want you guys to have my name because I love you. Or I could take yours. I told you-"_

 _Kate presses her lips to Jane's to silence her._ _I called my parents," she says when they part. "To tell them about the baby."_

 _"Okay," Jane leans back to look into her eyes. "And?"_

 _And she'd lost her nerve. She told them Jane was pregnant, and her father had all but broken her receiver, he'd yelled so loudly. Her mother's sobs made her feel like she was drowning. She hadn't gotten to the part where Jane's fetus was hers. Her parents already sounded like they were gathering torches and pitchforks._

 _"They won't be coming to the baby shower."_

 _Jane hugs her tighter. "Whatever they send, we'll put it next to the Bible verses from my Pop."_

 _Kate shakes her head. Rule number four. If you fuck up the first three rules, then at least don't bring a kid into your shit._

 _"Katie," Jane says gently. "I'm sorry. I can't make them be happy for us. Any of them. But that doesn't mean I can't be ecstatic.That doesn't mean I can't love you and kiss you, and fuck you, and make a family with you. It's not wrong. It cannot be wrong when you and I sit in the ultrasound and feel the way we feel looking at our little girl."_

 _Katherine kisses Jane again. "You're supposed to be the hormonal mess," she says with a chuckle._

 _"We're lesbians," Jane says. "We do pregnancy super gay."_

 _Kate laughs. She kisses Jane again. "You taste gross."_

 _Jane nods. "I tried mustard and jam," she says with a grimace. "It was regrettable."_

Maura finds Maya in her room with her face buried under a pillow, her favorite stuffed dog in the crook of her arm.

"I don't want to talk," she says, her voice muffled by the pillow.

"Too bad," Maura says, coming to sit on the edge of her bed. "You know we have to."

Maura lifts the pillow gently, revealing Maya's tear stained face. Her tears will never fail to pull at her heartstrings, no matter what's happened to make them appear.

"Why didn't she tell me?" Maya asks, sniffing. "Why didn't she ever reach out to them? Didn't she think I'd want to know them?"

Maya strokes her hair. "She didn't want you to get hurt," she says. "She didn't want either of you to suffer more than you already had, and she felt that that would happen if they entered your life."

Maura doesn't add that Jane's fears seem to be coming true.

"They missed her," Maya says. "They felt like mama stole her. They said it was her idea not to tell them about me."

Maura is barely successful in reigning in her response. "I wasn't there, Maya, so I can't tell you what happened. But the woman I met, when your mother moved back to Boston, was not a woman trying to do anything but keep her children safe."

"She went back to being a detective," Maya says. The doctor can almost see Sandra making these arguments. Laying them out for her eager grandchild to lap up.

"That job is in her blood, the same way it's in mine to be a doctor, and in yours to play soccer. She struggled with it. You know that. And I can tell you from experience that if she thought it would have put you in more danger, she would have pulled herself from anything to ensure your safety. You can't doubt that."

Maya wipes her nose with her sleeve. "I know," she mumbles.

Maura hands her a tissue. "She reached out to them, when your mother died," Maura says carefully. "They didn't answer. She wrote them several times. She was ready to bury her where they wanted. If they wanted."

Maya blinks, digesting. "They didn't answer?"

"No."

More thinking. "But they didn't know I was hers," she says, more to herself than to Maura.

Maura pulls in a breath. "Why should that matter, sweetheart?" She asks gently. "Haven't we always told you both that family is not blood. You are not Katherine, and Zoe is not Jane. The two of you are their children. You are our children, and we love you both."

Maya bites her lip, and Maura can practically see her warring with herself. She thinks that Jane was probably right. This is a difficult thing to ask a child to do. She closes her eyes for a moment.

Sandra and Howard can tell you lots of things about your mother that you don't know. You can see baby pictures of her that probably look just like yours. You can see yourself in Sandra. See Katherine in her. And that is amazing, right?"

Maya nods, not looking at her.

"But please, please remember that Jane has not only said you can see them, she allows you to go to their house, to stay with them for full days, despite how uncomfortable it makes her."

Maura watches Maya realize this. She continues, spurred on by the expression of dawning understanding.

"She has not raised a finger to stop you getting to know them. She has not said one bad thing about them, despite all of the...unsavory things you have implied they've said about her. And she has allowed you to accuse her of robbing you of the one thing she would give anything to return to you. Consider all of that. Okay?"

Maura leans down and kisses Maya's temple, and then she stands and heads to the door.

"Mommy?"

Maura turns, hoping she doesn't look as relieved as she feels to be called back. "Yes, darling."

"I don't wish Zoe away," she whispers. "And I don't wish you away. I don't."

Maura lets herself show how grateful for this she is. "Thank you for telling me that, my love. It makes me feel so happy."

Maya gives her a watery smile, and then rolls over toward the window.

Maura makes her way down the hall, but stops at a whisper that comes from Zoe's room. She pushes the door open to see Jane on her daughter's bed, Zoe sprawled across her, sleeping heavily.

"Okay?" Jane whispers.

Maura nods. "I think it will be," she says. "Zoe?"

"Heard most of the fight. Just finished crying herself to sleep." Jane threads her fingers into Zoe's dark hair.

"Sweet girl," Maura says. "She's afraid to lose her sister."

"Aren't we all," Jane says, looking rueful. She starts to shift Zoe off of her by inches. Maura watches, heart almost bursting with affection for them both, until Jane can slither off of the bed like a snake, and tiptoe from the room.

She shuts the door halfway, and then follows Maura downstairs, plopping down onto the couch.

"Did Katie go down okay?" Maura asks

"Like a light," Jane answers. She leans to the side, and Maura guides her head to her lap, bending to kiss her briefly.

"You are a good mother," Maura says. "This is the right thing to do."

Jane grins, her eyes still closed from the kiss. "Thank you, Dr. Mindreader," she murmurs. "Maybe I should introduce Zoe to my drunk zealot father. Get it out of the way?"

"Let's call my mother," Maura suggests. "She can passively aggressively demolish them both."

Jane snorts. "Here here. Time to stop the coddling."

Maura puts her hand on Jane's forehead. "It will work out."

"Sooner?" Jane opens her eyes. "Or later?"

Maura smiles warmly. "I don't guess," she reminds Jane, watching as something clouds her expression. "What is it?"

"Is she right though? Should I have told them after Kat died? That Maya was genetically related to them?"

Maura sighs. "I don't know," she says. "Honestly."

"Kate didn't tell me they didn't know. Not until Zoe was like six months old. And then she made me swear…" Jane breaks off, lost in a memory that Maura cannot access. "Is it stupid to keep a promise to a dead woman?"

"Not when that woman was your wife," Maura says.

Jane looks at her suddenly. "Maya doesn't wish you away, Maura," she says. "You know that, right?"

Maura nods, relaxing into the couch, brushing strands of Jane's hair away. "Yes," she says. "She told me that explicitly. That is how I know things will work out. And I have hope that it will be sooner."

Jane wiggles herself closer to Maura, getting comfortable. "You wanna watch TV until we fall asleep five minutes from now?" She asks.

Maura chuckles, reaching for the remote. "Yes," she says. "Please."

She switches on the TV, and flips through the channels until they find a docuseries on Discovery they can both handle.

"I love that about you, you know," Jane says after a couple of minutes.

Maura glances down at her. "Hmm?"

"That you hope for things. That you're optimistic and you look for the good things, and you...sort of bouy me along." Jane blushes slightly. "I love that about you."

Maura bites her lip, touched and a little aroused, and content beyond her wildest dreams.

"Always, sweetheart," she says. "No matter what."


	3. New Haunts

"Zoe!"

Jane is standing at the bottom of the stairs when Maura enters, her hands on her hips. She is looking up to the second floor, where the pounding of a baseline is likely drowning out her words.

"Turn it down!" Jane yells as Maura slips out of her coat. "Zoe Michelle! Turn it down!"

The music drops minutely.

 _Only when I start to think about it_

 _I hate everything about you_

 _Why do I love you_

 _You hate everything about me_

 _Why do you love me._

Jane rubs the back of her neck like she's working out a knot. "Jesus," she murmurs under her breath.

"I want it written on the formal record that I am not sneaking out as though I was never here," Maura says, coming to stand next to the detective. Jane sighs and leans in to kiss Maura's cheek.

"I might be more accepting of the decibel level if it was something other than Three Days Grace," she says crankily.

"She's hurting," Maura says as softly as she can with the music in the background.

"She's hurting my _ears_ ," Jane complains. "I mean…this song is also wildly inappropriate for a sibling relationship."

 _Every time we lie awake_

 _After every hit we take_

 _Every feeling that I get_

 _But I haven't missed you yet_

Maura slides her own hand under Jane's, taking over the kneading of her neck. "She's deflecting," Maura says. "Like mother, like daughter."

Jane doesn't answer, most likely because she is caught.

Maura smiles. "Where's Maya?"

"Her room. She was on the phone with Sandra for more than an hour, so it will be at least two until she wants to look at me again."

Maura does not deign to respond to this, just squeezes Jane's neck gently.

Jane turns from the stairs with a long sigh. She smiles tiredly.

"Shall I make dinner?" Maura asks.

Jane manages to look slightly scandalized. "No, Mo!" she answers. "You just got off a double, I'll do it."

"So you'll dial the phone, then? Tell Mr. Lin that you'd like the usual?"

The tease is not her best, but it makes Jane smile for real. The lines of her forehead ease a bit.

"For your information, I'm going to cook," she says, pulling Maura back into her arms, putting her chin on her shoulder from behind. "It's gonna be so good, you'll be begging me for forgiveness."

Maura leans into Jane's embrace.

They are in the middle of a triple homicide that has left an eight year old boy an orphan. The leads are few and far between, and they have both been working around the clock.

The added stress of Sandra and Howard is like a physical weight on both of them. They'd dropped Maya off two days ago from a dinner which last four hours, and Sandra had had the audacity to ask for a long weekend visit with her granddaughter before school started in two weeks.

"She's going to be a freshman," Sandra said, her voice dripping with faux sweetness. "Between classes and soccer, we'll barely see her."

"We'll have to discuss it," Jane had said. And Maura felt hot with fury.

How dare they? How dare they ask this of Jane when they knew how she felt? When they knew what she was giving up. How dare they ask _in front_ of the girls, knowing that Jane would neither deny in front of Maya, nor accept in front of Zoe?

How dare they not even acknowledge Maura? How dare they treat her like an inanimate object, and not the very real person who has helped to raise these children for the last eight years.

No, not these children. _Her_ children.

"We'll have to discuss it," Jane said, "as a family."

Since then, the house had been full of slamming doors and loud music. Jane's sleep was restless and full of dreams. From the way she woke herself up in the middle of the night, Maura could tell that they were nightmares, and that they were all variations on a theme.

Hoyt, murdering the people she loved.

Now, Jane moves to pull away from her and head to the kitchen, but Maura holds her back.

"No case work tonight," she says, pressing her lips to Jane's before she can respond. "Make me dinner, let's watch that horrible reality show the girls love so much, and then let me take you to bed."

Jane hums, interested. "Why Dr. Isles," she says, pretending to be scandalized. "Someone might get the wrong idea."

…

…

 _Kate winds the fingers of her free hand through the long strands of Jane's hair that is spread out across the pillow. Her wife had stumbled in late last night, barely staying awake long enough to pull her pants off, and now she sleeps face down in the pillow, shoulders rising and falling slowly._

 _Kate had been able to slip out of bed to fetch the baby, and slip them both back between the sheets without Jane even stirring._

 _This is one of the things that she had missed the most, that month she'd been away. She'd missed the warmth of Jane's body against hers in the grey morning light, and the way that her daughter smiled and reached pudgy hands to her every time she stepped into her room, babbling like they could understand her._

 _She'd missed the way the bed dipped when Jane slipped in after a late night at the precinct. The way she always smelled like stale coffee and new printer paper, and the way she'd burrow against Kate's side and say, "I love you," no matter what time it was._

 _And so the next time that Jane had called, begging her to come home, crying as though it wasn't something that she hated doing, Kate had said yes._

 _She'd said, yes, okay. I miss you too. I'm coming._

 _She'd said. Let's get married._

 _Maya hadn't wanted to let her go for hours. Jane hadn't either._

 _She's been home now for almost four months, officially married for three, and the little jolt of contentment she feels as she settles onto the couch in her living room every day has not yet stopped happening._

 _Maybe it never will._

" _Hey, beautiful," Jane says sleepily, rolling over. "Hey tiny beautiful."_

" _Oh, I didn't want to wake you," Kate says, knowing that this is only half true. "I know you got in late."_

 _Jane sits up a little, and in Kate's arms, Maya wiggles, trying to get to her. As soon as Jane takes her, she ducks her head, trying to begin nursing._

" _Uh uh," Jane says, laughing, holding the baby away from her chest. "We are weaning. And we mean it this time, little miss. No more boob. Strained peas and formula for you from now on!"_

 _Kate feels like crying. "I want to have your baby," she blurts out._

 _Jane looks up at her, eyebrows high. "Uh…what?"_

 _Kate links her pointer fingers together. "I want to have your baby," she repeats. "I want you to see what it looks like to watch your wife and your daughter snuggle together in bed."_

 _Jane frowns. "I do get to see that, Kat," she says after a moment. "Every day."_

 _Kate shakes her head. "I want to be pregnant with your child," she says. "I want us to have another baby."_

 _Jane takes her time unhooking Maya's tiny hands from the straps of her tank top. She is no longer frowning, but she doesn't look altogether happy either._

" _I…don't need for you to get pregnant to know that you love me, Katie," she says finally._

 _Maya grunts unhappily as Jane blocks her fourth attempt at accessing breast milk._

" _That's not why I'm saying this," Kate says, even as she realizes that it might be exactly why. The words of her mother are faded, but not completely gone. Kate doesn't think they will ever be completely gone._

" _When I was with my mother and father? When my mother was saying those awful things about us…I just kept thinking, I just kept thinking, 'is this what she wanted to raise me to be? This person so full of hate that I couldn't see how wonderful what I have at home is?" She looks into Jane's face to see that the other woman is staring back at her, wide eyed._

" _What?" she asks._

 _Jane has to swallow several times before she can answer._

" _That was the first time since you've been back that you called this place home."_

…

….

Maura is alone in the morgue when she gets the call. A concerned neighbor phoning to tell her that her normally docile and well behaved children were yelling so loud that they could be heard from the street.

"It was the shattering of glass that made me pick up the phone," the woman says, but Maura is already moving toward the elevator, panic making her unsteady.

Jane is not in the bullpen when Maura gets there, but Frankie is, and when he sees her face, he stands up, looking worried.

"Maura?"

"I got a call from the neighbor," she says. "Something is wrong."

Frankie grabs is jacket from the back of a nearby chair.

"I'll go," he says.

She doesn't question him, just turns back towards the exit.

"Text your sister."

…

Thirty five minutes later, Maura, Frankie, Maya and Zoe slide into a booth at an all night diner on a back street in downtown Boston.

Maura has no idea what they are doing there, but Frankie rarely ever asks for control of a situation, and she has to admit that she's curious to see what he has planned for his nieces.

For a long while, the four of them sit there in silence. Maya and Zoe are so busy not looking at each other, that they don't see their uncle studying them over the rim of his soda cup.

Finally, unable to help herself, Zoe looks up at the adults.

"Maya started it!" she says plaintively.

Maya looks up too, shocked and furious. "No I didn't!" she says quickly. "Zoe's the one who jumped on me like some rabid dog!"

Zoe turns to look at her sister, eyes wide. "You're the one saying that you don't want to be a part of our family anymore."

"I _never_ said that!"

"You said you wondered what if Mama had died," Zoe chokes out. Her anger is taking the form of tears, and she struggles to form each word. "I _heard_ you. I _heard_ you say it, so don't pretend you didn't. You don't care about me, or mommy, or mama either, so don't pretend you do."

Zoe wipes her nose on the back of her hand, catches Maura's eye, and picks up her napkin.

"Sorry," she mumbles.

"Do you know why I brought you guys here?" Frankie's voice makes both girls look around at him. Their expressions tell Maura that neither girl was aware that they'd been specifically brought somewhere.

"Huh?" Maya asks.

"To this diner," Frankie clarifies. "Do you know why I brought you two here?"

"Because we fought," Zoe says glumly. "We fought, and we broke Mama's favorite family picture, so we have to have consequences."

Frankie manages to suppress his chuckle. "Well," he says reasonably. "Your moms are in charge of that part, though I managed to get Maura's permission for this detour."

Both girls just look at him.

"Your mom used to bring me and your Uncle Tommy here when we were kids."

Zoe looks up at their surroundings, as though this revelation might have changed them somehow.

"So?" Maya says, though she looks intrigued. Jane does not talk much about her youngest brother, incarcerated on and off since before Zoe's birth, but Maura knows both her children have a ton of questions.

"You might not know a lot about it," Frankie says, "But your mother's father was not a very nice man."

"Our grandfather?" Zoe asks.

Frankie shakes his head. "He's not your grandfather. Your mom would never want you to call him that. She takes family really, really seriously."

"So then, why is Tommy our Uncle if he's in jail?" Maya asks.

Frankie hesitates. Maura knows the answer, and she knows that it is too complicated to explain to either of her girls at this stage.

"Tommy had a difficult time growing up," Maura breaks in. "That isn't to say that his mistakes are not his fault; it's just that Mama wants him to know that she is not the type to give up on him. If and when he turns his life around, she will be there to support him. He will be welcome into our family."

Maya crosses her arms. "I'm not wrong," she says, very quietly. "I'm not wrong to want to know them."

"Nah," Frankie says. "Of course you're not wrong. "But it should burn your ass that they don't want anything to do with your sister."

Maya blinks, but doesn't answer.

"She's been with you through everything," he says. "She's the kid who let you borrow Mr. Carrots when Pup had to go in the washer. She's the one you defended on Halloween, when the kids made fun of her for always dressing up like a bear."

Maya's mouth twitches. Maura sees Zoe look down into her lap very quickly.

"I mean. Do you introduce her to other people as your _half_ -sister? Is that how you think of her?"

Maya shakes her head instinctually.

"If your mother gave her more cake for dessert than you because she's her _real_ daughter, how would that make you feel?"

Maya looks as though Frankie has punched her. She has spent the last month and a half obsessing over the part of her DNA that was unknown, pushing others away from her because they don't share it, it never occurred to her that others could do the same.

"I am her real daughter too," she says, an argument more for herself than for him.

Frankie nods immediately. "Of course you are," he says. He points at Zoe. "And that's your real sister," he says. "You've been so busy setting up your opposition, you don't see how the two of you could be on the same team."

And, miracle of miracles, her teenager looks both guilty and humbled. She looks away from her family, as though she doesn't believe that she deserves comfort in light of her previous behavior.

Zoe might or might not understand what her sister is feeling, but it doesn't stop her from saying exactly the right thing.

"I'm sorry for jumping on you. I…just love you," she says softly. "You're my best friend."

Maya smiles faintly.

They have been through so much together, things that many adults will never have to endure, and so she is unable to curtail the tears that come when Maya reaches over and takes her sister's hand.

"I'm sorry I said that stuff. I didn't mean it…like…It's just hard to think that they were there the whole time and I didn't know them. Or thought they didn't want to know _me_."

Zoe nods. "Sorry for being mad when you go with them," she says. "I just don't like it when you leave me out. You never even say good-bye."

Maya opens her mouth and then shuts it again. Maura can tell that she's totally at a loss.

Frankie understands too. He turns a little in his chair to wave at the waitress.

"Can we please have two Super Fudge, Atomic Sundaes please?"

He grins at the girls' wide faces as the waitress walks away.

"You mom always used to get us these," he says. "The second Saturday of every month, this is where we met. It didn't matter what had happened in the last thirty days. It didn't matter if Tommy had been in a fight, or if Jane and I weren't talking. We came here, and she bought us sundaes, and we sat here and just…were together."

Maya looks at Zoe out of the corner of her eye. "Remember the time machine?" she asks.

Zoe grins. "Yeah."

When Jane and Maura had finally moved out of the hotel suites across from the precinct, they'd purchased a new refrigerator. The box had become the children's time machine, and then their secret cave, and then finally, a quiet space where the girls could go and whisper their secrets to each other, until Maura declared the box too old and bedraggled to remain in her house, and it had been put out by the curb.

"I was really sad when Mommy made us get rid of it," she continues. And it is clear that this is a confession – a story – that is for Zoe only.

"I think everyone thought I was sad because the box was leaving…but really, I remember thinking that it meant you and I wouldn't be able to hang out anymore."

Maura remembers how Maya had begged to keep that broken old box. She remembers how her offers of similar items as replacements only seemed to distress her daughter more.

"But the night after Mommy put it out, I remember you came into our room, and you climbed into my bed and pulled the blanket up over your head," Maya swallows against a sudden wave of emotion. "And you said, 'see My? It's just the same!'"

Zoe laughs. Maura wonders if she remembers. She'd only been five at the time.

"I knew then that we'd always be together."

Zoe nods. "Yeah," she says. "Pretty much."

Their sundaes arrive, and both girls look to Maura for permission, although Zoe has already picked up her spoon.

Maura chuckles. "Go ahead," she says. "Your punishment is on hold until you finish."

Both girls are almost finished when the text pings through to Maura's phone. She fishes it out of her bag and swipes through to the message.

 _ **Frost: Call me ASAP. Hostage situation 17 Boylston. Jane inside**_

The world shrinks around her.

Beside her, but as though from a distance. She hears Frankie's phone buzz. He pulls it off of his belt one handed, the other hand trying to steal a spoonful of Zoe's ice cream.

She sees him scan the message, and then hears the spoon fall with a clatter to the table.

 _ **17 Boylston. Hostage situation.**_

 _ **Back up requested.**_

 _ **Officer down.**_


	4. Grave Robbers

" _Maya!"_

 _Kate runs over to lift her daughter away from the kitchen table, where she is smearing chocolate sauce onto the surface with her hands. Her cry of dismay wakes the baby, and Kate balances Maya on the step stool by the sink and tries to breathe._

 _She'd thought that having a second kid would that child rearing would be exactly twice as hard as it had been before. She'd been confused and then completely bewildered to discover that it was a matter of exponents rather than simple multiplication._

" _I have told you and told you, Maya," she says now, reaching to turn the water on at the sink. "You do not go into the fridge without me or Mama. When you are clean, you're getting a timeout, young lady."_

 _Maya's lower lip trembles. "I wanted choco-milk," she says, pouting. "I'mma big girl."_

 _This is what Kate and Jane have been telling her ever since the birth. Zoe's arrival had Maya pin-balls between excitement over being a big sister, and fury at no longer being the baby._

 _And she is right, they have told her she can have more freedom picking out her outfits, and brushing her teeth. She is no longer allowed to drink from a bottle, or suck on a pacifier._

 _Kate can see the leap to making herself chocolate milk. It is something she might have done. She reaches for the dish towel and wipes Maya's hands. She notices that there is chocolate in Maya's hair._

" _Ugh," she says. "You're filthy."_

 _Maya looks up at her, surprise in her wide hazel eyes._

 _And like a camera flash that pulls her back through time, Katie sees her own mother, holding a bar of soap and a dish rag. She stands in front of Katie, and her face is full of dismay, and deeper, disgust._

" _You're filthy," she says. "It's time to clean you up, filthy girl."_

 _Katie drops the dish towel she is holding as though it has burned her. Maya watches it fall, and so when she looks back up to find her mother eye level with her, she flinches._

 _The movement makes Kate's stomach heave._

" _Maya," she says. "I'm sorry. You're not filthy. You could never be filthy, do you understand?"_

 _Maya nods. "Okay," she says slowly, unsure if this change in tone is a new form of punishment. "I'mma big girl," she says hopefully._

" _Yes," Kate agrees. "You are a big girl, and I love you so much."_

 _Maya smiles. This sentence, she knows, is never a punishment. "I love you too, Mommy...can I have some choco milk?"_

 _And Kate laughs, and pulls her sweet smelling, chocolate covered daughter into her arms. In the next room, Zoe wails again._

 _Kate pulls away to look Maya in the face. "Let's get Zo-Zo and go outside and take some pictures!" She says._

 _Maya claps her hands excitedly. "Oh yes!" she agrees. "Of what, Mommy?"_

 _Kate lifts her down from the step stool. "Anything you like," she answers._

…

 _She is still a little wild-eyed and hyper when Jane gets home that evening. She presses the detective back, against the front door, and kisses her hard._

" _I've made a new rule," she says, before Jane can ask what's going on._

" _Rule number five?" Jane says, interested. "What is it?"_

" _First," Kate says, "promise me that my parents will never know Maya is mine genetically."_

 _Jane looks at her, shocked. "I thought-"_

" _No," Kate says. "I was going to, and then I got too afraid. And now I wouldn't for all of the world. So promise. Promise me, Jane."_

 _Jane's face softens around the corners of her eyes. "What's rule number five?" she asks._

" _These little girls," Kate continues. "You and me. Chicago. That's the only thing that matters Jane. Promise they'll never get them." The intensity of her earlier epiphany has her talking fast, the elation manifesting itself as a fever._

 _They'd spent four hours outside, and Kate had shot two full rolls of film. More than since before Zoe was born. Only eight or nine of them would be usable. The rest would go to her girls. A legacy._

" _Katie," Jane says. She takes her wifes face between her hands and holds it still. "Tell me your rule, beautiful."_

 _Kate leans forward to kiss Jane again._

" _Protect them," she whispers. "Protect them until your very last breath."_

…

… _..._

A young woman falls in love with a man. He tells her that she is the only one for him. He is sweet, and kind, and he promises to take her away from the poverty and pain that is current life, to take care of her forever.

He tells her to drop out of school. She does and they run away together.

He tells her to stop writing home, and she does. He is the only family she needs. Him and the tiny baby growing inside of her.

By the time the boy is two, the fairy tale has been dead for almost a year.

Uneducated, estranged from all those who might love her, the woman runs from her husband on a cold night in January. She runs as far away as she can.

For the next four years, she works three jobs, and doesn't use the internet or buy a cellphone. She lives on the coast and never sees the ocean.

The new man who eventually wins her heart has to try very hard to find the right words. He tells her that she is the only one for him, and she slams the door of the car on his hand, and doesn't return his phone calls.

She decides to marry him when he tells her that he will leave her alone.

She decides to love him when their new house has a bedroom just for her, and bed in the shape of a race car for her son.

Just after the boy's eighth birthday, his father returns. He lurks on the far corner of the block, and seethes, until the rage will not stay buried and he gets out of the car with his handgun determined to make the bitch who left him pay.

She pays with her life.

Her new, illegitimate husband pays with his life too.

But in his rage, he has miscalculated. His son is not home, but at a friend's house for the day, and so the police whisk him away before he can be found and claimed by the murderer. His father.

It is two weeks later when he finally gets his hands on his son; a tall, wide eyed boy who will not call him daddy, who cries all the time to go home, and who runs toward the police woman when she appears in his apartment.

His hand gun is in his waistband, and although he doesn't anticipate this bitch cop to be so quick on her own draw, he manages two shots before she hits him.

He uses his last bit of strength to look for his son.

He is devastated to see the boy kneeling not over his body, but the cops, his small hands pressing at a wound that might, or might not kill her.

He is satisfied.

He is grieving for the son he will never get to know.

He is dead.

…

…

Frost is waiting for them when they arrive in the waiting room at the hospital. Frankie grabs his nieces, holding them back as Maura walks up to her wife's partner, her heart so loud in her ears that it is hard to hear anything else.

"Tell me," she says to Barry, unable to hear her children behind her, struggling against Frankie.

"Tell me, Frost. Tell me."

"She's alive," he answers her, taking her upper arm, telling her the most important thing first. "She was conscious in the bus, Maura. She's going to be okay."

Some of Maura's panic ebbs away. Her free hand comes to his shoulder, to steady herself.

"She took a bullet?"

"Two," he says. "One to the vest, and glanced her neck."

The panic returns, full force. "Her neck?" she asks, hearing her voice break. "Barold, her _neck_?"

"A _graze,_ " he assures her. "Just a graze, Maura. Not even surgery."

Behind them, Zoe and Maya succeed in overpowering their uncle. They rush forward, both shouting the same question in different, high pitched rhythms.

"She's okay," Maura says, taking Zoe into arms. "She's okay. Everything is okay."

"I wanna see her," Maya says, choked up. "I wanna see mama. Where is she?"

Maura reaches out to put her hand on Maya's cheek, and the teenager grasps her wrist with both of her hands. She looks young, and pale, and guilty.

"She's okay, my darling," Maura says again. "We'll see her soon."

She doesn't know if this is true, but as she says it, she wills it to be so. She doesn't have a choice between the truth and lies at this moment. The only thing she can do is be a mother, and that means telling her children exactly what they need to hear.

"Yes," Frost says. He puts his hand on Maura's shoulder. "Very soon, guys, I promise." He hesitates. "I need to talk to your mom for a minute, though, okay? Can you wait with Frankie over-"

"No," Maya says, she pulls away from Maura's hand and crosses her arms over her chest.

"Honey," Maura begins, but Maya shakes her head, and Zoe pulls her tearstained face away from Maura's shoulder and shakes hers too.

"We want to hear what you're going to say."

"They're going to discuss the case," Frankie cuts in, stepping forward. "Your mom's hurt because of the case they've been working on. They need to discuss it, guys, okay?"

He holds out his arms, as if to herd the girls away from Maura.

Zoe looks between them, still on the brink of tears. "Promise you won't see Mama without us," she says to Maura.

Maura crosses her heart.

Frost waits until they are out of earshot to speak again. Maura fights the urge to wring her hands.

"She can't speak," Frost says lowly. "The Thoracic surgeon is with her now, NOT because he wants to operate," Frost cuts off her interjection. "Just because he wants to make sure there's no damage to her epiglottis or vocal chords."

"The Hyoid bone?" Maura asks.

"Intact, the mandible too."

"This is sounding like more than a graze, Detective."

Frost nods, conceding. "She turned her head to shield the kid," he says. "Ducked down, and got the second bullet where the top of her vest would have been."

Maura tries to focus a part of her attention on someone who is not in her immediate family, but it is hard.

"Jamison Burke," she says. "He's unharmed?"

"Yes," Frost says. "He's fine physically, although who knows how he will fare emotionally. His father kills his pregnant mother and stepfather? Kidnaps him from a stable home?"

Maura can't help but glance at Maya, who is watching them both with hawk eyes, waiting to be allowed back over.

"When can we see her?"

Behind Frankie, Maya and Zoe, the door to the waiting room pushes inward, and Angela Rizzoli appears, jacket inside out, her eyes darting all about. She hurries up to Frankie and pulls him, and then the girls into what must be bone crushing hugs.

"The doctor will want to talk to you when he comes out," Frost is saying, "but I don't think it will be long. She's awake, like I said."

When Maura doesn't answer right away, Frost puts his hand on her elbow. "She's okay," he repeats.

She smiles faintly at him. "Will we see the H-word in the papers, Barry?"

Frost grins at her. "Oh yeah," he says. "You'd better get your black out marker ready."

…

…

" _What happens if you die?" She doesn't mean to ask it so blatantly, but the anxiety that has been simmering for the last few days is starting to boil over. Jane has been in a lot of close scrapes before, but none have felt as dangerous or as close as this Charles Hoyt business._

 _Jane looks up from her reading. She has a healing cut above her eyebrow that makes Kate woozy to look at. She hates thinking of Jane injured, no matter how strong she seems to be._

" _I'm not going to die, hon," Jane says softly._

" _But what if you do? What if this psycho guy just…shows up and kills you?"_

" _Katie." Jane puts aside the file she'd been studying and opens her arms to her wife. But Kate shakes her head, standing from the couch and moving to look out the window._

" _I'm serious. I read some stuff about what this guy's done! It's sick. And now he's after you."_

 _Jane stands too. "It's better that he's after me than another unsuspecting woman or family," she says reasonably. "I'm ready for him. I can handle him."_

" _Okay," Kate says, still refusing to be comforted. "But what if he comes after me? Or one of the girls? You think Zoe is ready for Charles Hoyt, Jane?"_

 _She watches as surprise and anger lock up Jane's muscles for the smallest of seconds. When they'd first gotten together, this is the action that had thrilled her. She'd purposefully said things and done things to elicit the reaction, to remind herself that her girlfriend was the strongest, the most compassionate._

" _I'm not going to let him touch any of you," she growls. Kate shivers at the sound of her voice, though she isn't afraid._

" _Hey," Jane says, taking Kate's shoulders and turning her around. "Look at me. Tell me what's wrong."_

 _Kate puts her arms around Jane's waist. "I couldn't live without you," she murmurs into her neck. "I couldn't…take care of them alone."_

 _Jane's hands rub her back gently. "You don't have to," she says. "You'll never have to."_

" _You don't know that," she says, pushing because she has to hear Jane reassure her again. "You don't know. Tomorrow you could leave our kids without a mother. Or the next day."_

 _Does she believe that? She doesn't think so. But God, the way Jane holds her tighter. The way she inhales against Kate's temple like she's the only thing that Jane lives for._

 _"I just don't think that you should have goaded him like that in the paper, Jane," she says._

 _Jane pulls back to look at her. "I didn't goad him, hon, I stated that this was my city and that he couldn't just go around killing girls."_

 _"You said you would find him, and make sure he never hurt another woman again."_

 _Jane's face gets dark and brooding. It is one of Kate's favorite expressions on her wife, even though she knows it usually means she's in for a fight._

 _"I will," Jane says gruffly. "Did you call Natasha today? How are they adjusting to the Brownstone?"_

 _And Kate sighs and wraps her arms tighter around the skinny waist of her detective. She is almost over her jealousy at Jane's attentiveness to the saved women. She can almost see her way to caring for them herself._

 _Almost._

 _"They are fine. They are endlessly grateful," she kisses her wife's shoulder. "You are good, Jane Rizzoli, you know that? You are a good, good, cop."_

 _Jane lifts her up into the air, her long fingers contracting on Kate's waist and making her giggle. Making her hot._

 _"I'm a detective," she growls playfully. "And a superhero. The paper says so."_

 _But Kate pulls back, her brows knitting together in the serious way she knows Jane hates. "Superhero or not," she says quietly, "you have human children who would miss you terribly if something happened. You have a human wife who would simply cease to carry on." She wraps her legs around Jane's waist and puts her head down on her muscular shoulder. "Promise me you'll be careful, Superjane "_

 _And Jane hugs her hard._

 _"I promise."_

…

…

Maura handles Jane's injuries differently than Kate does. It is something she's known for over a decade. She doesn't know what Kate would have done upon entering the hospital room. Would she have cried and flung herself on the bed? Would she have made a joke, trying to laugh it off? Would she have steered clear of the hospital altogether?

Maura doesn't know, and as she crosses the little room to take her wife's hand in hers, she doesn't care. She kisses Jane's knuckles.

"Hello, love."

"Hi," Jane mouths, she smiles at Maya, who comes up to the bed, holding Katie. "Hi tiny beautifuls."

"Don't speak," Maura and Maya say together.

Zoe is last to enter the room, and when she sees her mother, she starts to cry. She runs forward and sits on the edge of Jane's bed, leaning forward to bury her face in her mother's stomach.

"Mama," she says, her voice muffled.

Jane puts her free hand in her daughter's hair, scratching her scalp gently.

"She's okay, honey," Maura says, speaking for Jane. "She's going to be just fine."

Katie reaches out for Maura, and when she's been transferred, Maya moves to sit on the edge of Jane's bed too, bending her head to Jane's uninjured shoulder.

"I love you," Maya says. "A lot."

Jane grins. "My girls," she says.

"Don't talk," Maura and Maya say.

"I love you too, Mama!" Katie says from Maura's arms. She sighs happily and leans back against Maura's chest. "Yah," she says. "Pretty much."

Zoe chokes a laugh through her tears, and Maya rolls her eyes.

They are all going to be okay.

…

They're all still there when Howard Hodgkin arrives.

He knocks on the open door before crossing the threshold, and Maura jumps to her feet when she sees him, startling the dozing baby in her arms.

"You're not welcome here," she says, not caring if she sounds cold.

Howard freezes. He is holding a worn shoebox in both of his hands, and after a long moment, he holds it up as though it might pay his way into the room.

"How did you know we were here?" Maura asks, suspicious. She is willing to be civil to Katherine's parents only when they do not intrude on her family's recuperation time. She sees Jane looking at her out of the corner of her eye, face pale.

"I called them." It's Maya's voice is small, ashamed and scared. "I...texted," she says, not meeting Maura's eyes. "From the car."

"What?" Zoe looks at her sister as though she doesn't even recognize her. "You _what_ , Maya? Why?"

Maya's eyes are filling slowly with tears, and Maura sees that she doesn't know the answer. She might not ever know. She sees that it is awful to be fourteen, in any situation, and that this one is worse than most.

She loves her daughter more fiercely than ever, in that moment.

"I'm here by myself," Howard shifts on his feet, nervous. "I came alone," he repeats. "And I don't intend to stay. I just, I wanted to..." He shuffles again, trying to find the right words, and Maura thinks he looks small without his wife. Diminished somehow.

"I wanted to give these to Maya," he says. "I think she deserves to have them."

"Can it wait?" Maura asks irritably. She sees Jane smirk. "We've all just gone through a very scary ordeal, and Jane deserves to rest with her children."

And Howard looks up into Maura's face, and she sees that he might be close to tears. It brings her up short, this show of emotion from the man who is usually the stolid, impassive back drop to his wife's emotional outbursts.

"I would say yes," he says quietly. "If I thought that there was any chance this could wait."

On the bed, Jane lifts her hand, asking for attention. When Howard looks at her, she beckons him closer and holds out her hands for the box.

He only hesitates for a nanosecond before handing it over. Jane cracks the lid, throwing Zoe a glare when she tries to peek inside. Maura watches her face as she looks at the contents, at the way her eyes soften while her jawline hardens, and she knows it's something to do with Katherine.

Jane moves her other hand, like she would reach in and touch whatever's inside the box, and then she thinks better of it, and closes the lid.  
She looks at Howard, nods, and hands it back.

"Thank you," Howard says softly. He turns to Maya, who moved to stand next to Maura when he entered.

"These are for you, Maya," he says thickly. "I've had them for a long time, and…" He holds the box out to her, smiling faintly when she takes it. "I hope you won't judge us too harshly for keeping it these last few weeks."

Maya cracks the lid of the box, and Maura is finally able to see inside.

The inside is half full of what look like scraps of paper, but Maura soon realizes that there is writing on each one. And among the paper, there are photographs, some of them blurry, some color, some black and white.

Maya tilts the box towards her face, and Maura catches the writing on half of a post-it.

 _...love you so much, little girl. The sunset was so pretty today and I…_

Maya pulls in a breath, and then doesn't let it out. Maura puts her hand on her back, heartened and relieved when Maya leans into her.

"We thought you might be a second chance," Howard says into the silence. "And then...we got to know you and...I realized you _are_. Just not the way we thought."

And with that, he turns and leaves.

Maya doesn't say good-bye. She is still looking at the contents of the box. Her birth mother, returned to her.

"Mommy," She says, leaning closer to Maura, because she is - after all - the one who has arms to hold her. "Mommy."

"I'm here, little girl," Maura says softly. She smooths Maya's hair, and Katie, seeing the gesture, reaches out and tries to imitate it.

"Me too, My My," she says sweetly. "M'here too."

"Me too," Zoe says from her perch next to Jane. "Forever."

"Me too," Jane whispers.

"Mama!" Maya says, scolding, but Katie beats her to it.

"Don't _talk!_ "


	5. Afterlife

_If there is one thing she wishes Jane could know, it would be that death does not hurt. The things that happened before her death, things that undoubtedly hurt a great deal, are now nothing more than ideas. They are less than memories. Katherine would give anything, possibly even take some of the pain back, if it meant that Jane could know that she is okay._

 _She is here now, standing in the bedroom that used to be hers, watching as Jane curls around a pillow on the bed, shutting her eyes tightly._

 _Katherine wants to touch her hair. She wants to kiss the bruises on her skin until they vanish. She thinks that Jane must be hurting, but finds that she cannot wrap her mind around what exactly the hurt might be. She has to strain her memory to remember the circumstances that brought her to this point._

" _Katie," Jane murmurs, pulling the pillow closer to her body. "Forgive me, please."_

 _If there is something to forgive, Katherine does not remember what it is. And what should the forgiveness of a dead woman matter anyway? She moves forward and sits down on the edge of the bed, leaning forward until her mouth is right by Jane's ear._

" _Go to sleep, my love," she says firmly. She is aware of using the endearment because it is something that might comfort, and not because she particularly feels it._

 _A tear leaks out of the corner of Jane's eye. "Katie," she whispers._

" _Go to sleep," Katherine answers. "And you'll see me. I promise."_

 _Jane's breathing slows. She tilts her head towards the spot where Katherine's head would be if she still possessed a body._

" _I can't do this," Jane murmurs. "I can't do this without you."_

 _Katherine leans back. The show of raw emotion from a woman who is usually so solid and strong, it unnerves her. It is unsettling. She knows she loved Jane. Loves her. She loves her. She knows that her earth used to revolve around her, their children, and the life they'd created together._

" _There's no pain," she says. "Baby. Go to sleep. If you go to sleep I'll tell you all about it."_

…

…

"I saw Katherine."

Maura's arm is outstretched to turn the light off, and she pulls it back slowly.

Jane is on her back staring intensely at the ceiling. She seems to be bracing herself for Maura's answer.

"It's been a while since that's happened," she says after a moment. This is true. It's been six years since Jane was fearful enough, or in enough pain to conjure Katherine. At the time, Maura had tried hard to listen to Jane's words and remain neutral, to not talk about trauma, and the brain's ability to cope. She had sensed Jane's reluctance to talk about it, and she hadn't wanted to deter her further.

No, Jane sighs. "I know you don't believe it's real," she says.

"I've never said that," Maura counters.

Jane smiles faintly. "You've never had to."

Maura doesn't know how to answer this, so she reaches over and takes Jane's hand, linking their fingers. It's her first night home from the hospital, and Maura doesn't want to fight. She is about to say as much, when Jane rolls over to face her.

"Do you remember when you told me I didn't have to forget her, but that I had to let her go?" she asks.

Maura nods. "Yes," she answers, and then, hoping to curtail any doubt. "I don't think you haven't, for the record."

Jane's smile is wider this time. "I know," she says gently. Her fingers squeeze Maura's. "But what if I should?"

Maura frowns, "Should what?"

"Forget her," Jane answers. "What if it would be easier to go on if we just simply…forgot all about her."

Maura studies Jane's face. This discussion does not seem to be distressing her, and for a moment the doctor wonders if maybe Jane snuck another pain pill while she wasn't looking.

"I don't," Maura begins, but Jane cuts her off.

"I know. You don't believe in ghosts or spirits or any of that. So…by your calculation, the moment Katherine died, she forgot us. She ceased to be."

"Yes," Maura says slowly. "But…that's _death_ , Jane. You can't continue to live, and pick and choose what you remember and what you forget. That's just," Maura sighs, feeling like she is missing a huge part of their conversation. "That's just what life is," she finishes, though she is unsatisfied with her conclusion.

But it seems to be enough for Jane, who leans forward to press a kiss to her nose. "I love you," she murmurs.

Maura smiles. "I love you too. It is good to have you back in bed beside me."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes," Maura agrees. "And when you are fully healed, I will show you just how good."

A muffled "Oh gross," comes from outside the door, and Maura sits up, while Jane falls back onto her pillow, half laughing, half groaning.

"Maya?" Maura calls.

"I was gonna knock!" Maya calls out preemptively. "But then I thought you might be sleeping."

The door cracks open a little bit, and Maya sticks her head around the corner, looking bed-rumpled.

" _I'm_ the one who was sleeping," comes Zoe's voice grumpily. "Moms are never asleep this early."

Maya stumbles over the threshold into the bedroom at a little shove from her sister. "Sorry to _interrupt_ ," she says, making a face.

Jane, still a little red, sits up next to Maura. "What's up?" she asks, clearly wanting to change the subject.

Zoe looks expectantly at Maya, who takes a tentative step further into the room.

"Tomorrow, I'm supposed to go with Gram and Gramps for the long weekend," she says, looking down at her bare feet.

Maura's spirits fall. She'd hoped that they wouldn't have to confront this fact until the morning. Jane, on the other hand, is nodding.

"I know," she says simply.

Maya glances between her parents before taking a breath. "I don't want to go," she says quietly.

Zoe, whose expression had turned bitter at the mention of Maya's departure, now stares at her sister with open-mouthed shock.

Maura looks at Jane. The detective is looking at Maya, lip between her teeth. Finally, she pats the bed.

"Come here, bug," she says.

Maya and Zoe climb up onto the bed to sit pretzel style in front of their parents, and when Jane gestures even further, Maya settles herself gently in her arms.

"Is this because of the box Howard gave you?"

"She stole Katherine's things," Maya says angrily. "How could she do that?"

It is the first time that Maura has ever heard Maya call her mother by her given name, and it shocks her. It seems to shock Zoe too, and she moves forward to lean against Maura, winding her hand in the doctor's shirt like she used to do when she was younger.

Jane seems to be the only one who is not surprised. "I think she was jealous," she says. "I think she hated how much her daughter loved you and Zo. And me," she adds, like an afterthought.

"I want to spend the rest of the summer with you guys," Maya repeats, tilting her head back to look up at her mother. "Maybe you could take us to the diner you used to take your brothers to?"

Jane grins. "You just want another sundae," she murmurs, and Maya laughs, though she sobers quickly.

"What will they say?" she asks, "When they come tomorrow?"

In Maura's arms, Zoe shudders, no doubt thinking about the fight that is going to ensue.

Jane shrugs. "It doesn't matter," she says. "I'll tell them that you're not allowed to go."

Maya's eyes widen. "But-"

"I'll say you can't go," Jane continues, "And then, if you want to see them later on…you can reach out to them. Okay?"

Maya bites her lip, looking just like Jane. "Gram said that Katherine would want me to move in with them. That she'd want me to learn from her mistakes, and be better."

Jane's jaw clenches, but whatever she wants to say does not make it past her teeth. She leans forward to press her lips against Maya's forehead, and Maya hugs her tighter, hiding her tears in her mother's shirt.

Maura leans back to pull the covers upwards, ushering bother children closer.

"Come on," she says with a smile. "Everybody under."

…

…

 _The woman who joins her is beautiful. Maybe a little old, maybe a little more lined than Katherine would normally go for, but when she turns and smiles at her, the brunette smiles back, and Katherine sees she is gorgeous._

" _Hey," she says, letting her camera drop to her side. "Hi."_

" _Katie," the woman says._

" _Yeah," Katherine says, "have we met? I'm so bad with faces I don't catch on camera." She laughs, but the woman doesn't. She seems to have frozen._

" _Sorry," Katherine says, "have we met before?"_

 _The other woman blinks several times, like she's trying to restart her vital functions._

" _Yeah," she says softly. "My name is Jane."_

 _Katherine nods. "It's nice to meet you, Jane," She says. "Are you a photographer too?"_

 _Jane shakes her head. "No, but I really admire your work," she says. She doesn't seem to be able to stop looking at Katie, and she blushes under the intense stare._

" _Wow," she says, and after a minute of silence, she giggles. "Why are are you looking at me like that?"_

" _You're really pretty," Jane says. "And you look...really happy."_

 _Katherine blushes even deeper. She can feel her cheeks get warm. "Thanks," she says, trying not to smile more widely. "And...I am, I guess."_

 _Jane's eyes look glossy. Katherine doesn't recognize the expression. She cannot match it to anything she's seen before._

" _Do you want to sit?" she asks finally, gesturing to a bench nearby._

 _Jane manages to tear her eyes away from Katherine, and she looks surprised by the appearance of the bench, and then she swallows really hard._

" _Yeah," she says. "Okay."_

" _So you've been taking pictures?" Jane asks when they've settled. Katherine thinks that Jane sits closer than is necessary, but she also kind of likes the feeling of having her close._

" _Yes," she says. "It's so beautiful here. The lighting is amazing."_

 _Jane doesn't seem to have heard her. "This is our bench, Katie," she says. The words come out like she doesn't mean to be saying them. "Don't you recognize it? This is the bench we were on when I told you I was pregnant with Maya." She leans forward and searches Katherine's face._

" _Don't you remember Maya, Katie?"_

 _Katherine smiles uncertainly. She isn't afraid, this woman is definitely not dangerous._

 _And God, how lovely her eyes are._

" _Can I take your picture?" she asks, lifting the camera hopefully. "Jane?"_

 _Jane reaches out and takes Katherine's hand. The contact feels like the brush of a warm, dense fog, and Katherine watches, entranced, as Jane brings her hand to her lips, but doesn't kiss._

" _Yeah," she says after a second, her voice low and full._

 _In another life, in some other era, Katherine thinks would have fallen hard for Jane._

" _Yeah," Jane says again. She smiles, eyes bright and wet, and alive._

" _Take my picture."_

…

…

"Mama?"

Maura wakes to the whisper, but doesn't open her eyes. Maya is not calling for her.

"Mama?"

"Yeah?" Jane's sleepy, raspy voice comes a second later.

"Did...did you watch Charles Hoyt rape mommy?"

Maura opens her eyes a little, just to check that Zoe is still fast asleep in her arms.

The silence stretches on for a little bit.

"Yeah," Jane says again. It's possibly the only thing she can get out.

Maya shifts a little, tugging at the covers. "He made you?"

Jane pulls in a deep breath. "My," she says softly. "It's not how I want you to remember your-"

"She wrote to us about you," Maya interjects. "I think that's why Gram stole all those papers and post its and things."

"Hmm?"

"They were all about you, Mama," Maya says again. "About how you were our foundation. About how safe she felt with you. About how strong you were for her, all the time." Maya's voice cracks a little. "About how she knew I'd be strong and good...because of you."

Maura doesn't have to look to know that Jane has wrapped her arms around her daughter.

"I'm sorry," Maya says, voice muffled against Jane's body. "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for, honey," Jane says softly. "And if there is, then I am sorry too. I'm sorry you'll never get to know her."

"I know her," Maya says, sounding teary and firm. "I know her, Mama. Reading her stuff was like reading a book I loved and forgot about."

"She would be so proud of you, Maya," Jane says. "If she could know you today. She would be so proud of you and Zo."

"All of us," Maya corrects. "You and Mommy too."

Jane makes a noise that sounds like a laugh submerged in water.

"You know what I remember?" Maya asks, voice dropping to a whisper. "Do you know what I remember about that night, Mama?"

Jane must shake her head, because after a moment, Maya speaks again without verbal prompting.

"I remember that you walked over to me, and you picked me up. I remember that you kissed my head, and you told me how much you and Mommy loved me."

Jane is crying. Maura has to work very hard not to make any noise.

"I remember that I felt safe, and that I was glad you were there." Maya pauses for a long minute. "And that's it."

Something wet drops onto Maura's wrist, and she opens her eyes to see Zoe looking back at her, wide, light brown eyes brimming with tears.

They look at each other, and they don't move, and behind her, Maura knows that Jane and Maya are doing the same.

"I hope that you and Zo will share the shoebox with me and mom, when you're ready," Jane says after a while, when she's regained her composure.  
"I hope you'll find a way to thank your Grandfather for saving it for you all of these years."

Maya hums a noise that sounds like agreement.

"Can we have end of summer pancakes for breakfast?" she asks. She is, as always, the queen of the non sequitur.

She is just like her mothers.

This is too much for Zoe. She pops her head up over Maura's shoulder, tears forgotten.

"Yes!" She says. "End of Summer pancakes! Bunnies! I want whip cream whiskers!"  
And Maura chuckles and rolls over to face Jane and Maya.

"Good morning, my darlings," she says.

Maya grins back at her.

"Morning, Mommy."

…

Their familial bliss is disrupted in the early afternoon by the arrival of Sandra and Howard. The girls scamper upstairs, and when Maya turns to look apologetically at her mothers, Jane waves her away with one hand, wrapping the other around Maura's waist.

"You ready?" she asks, but it is a rhetorical question.

When Jane tells Katherine's parents that Maya will not be leaving with them, Sandra pulls in a breath for a scathing retort, but Howard puts his hand on her arm.

"It's the last little bit before school," he says quietly. He clearly hopes to leave without much of a fuss. "It's understandable she'd want to spend it with her family."

" _We_ are her family," Sandra says sourly. She looks at Jane. "You can't hide her from us."

Jane tilts her head, as though she's heard a note that is just a little bit out of tune.

"Actually, I can," she says. "She's our daughter. Maura adopted her seven and a half years ago, and so if we wanted to, we could keep her from you until she turns 21."

"I'd take you to court," Sandra says. "You'd have to fight me."

Maura can't help the sound that comes out of her mouth. "You don't have the equity to meet the Rizzoli-Isles in court," she says icily.

Sandra stares at her.

Jane raises her eyebrows, grinning.

"You're scarring her," Sandra says. "You're damaging her."

This makes the smile drop off of Jane's face, but Howard beats her to speaking.

"They're not," he says in his still soft voice. When she turns on him, he holds up his hands, looking sorrowful. "We had it wrong, Sandy," he says gently.

"We can say we loved her, almost until it hurt. But we were wrong too."

Sandra looks at her husband as though she has never seen him before. Maura tries to put herself in the woman's shoes, tries to feel any small bit of sympathy for her.

She finds she can't quite manage it.

"She is our blood," Sandra says furiously. "You can't keep her from us. Katherine wouldn't want-"

"Katherine is gone," Jane says firmly. She is still holding Maura's hand, but now she drops it to step forward into Sandra's space. "What matters now is what her parents want. And what's best for her."

Behind his wife, Howard bows his head to hide his face, but not before Maura sees the subtle upturn of his lips. She wonders if he is waking up at last. She wonders if, like Angela, he can finally see the real cost of his actions.

Sandra remains blind. She stares at Jane in bug-eyed rage. "My daughter," she begins, but a voice from the stairs makes her break off.

"She hated you."

No one has heard Maya and Zoe descend the top half of the staircase. Maya stands, a little in front of her sister, and she fixes a steely glare on her grandmother.

"She hated you for the things you did to her," Maya says again. "She _hated_ you and she hated herself. Until she met my mother."

Jane turns from the door, reaching out to Maya like she could soothe her. Maura imagines that Jane used to offer the same shelter to Katherine, that she used to reach her hand out in just the same way, to protect her from whatever bad thing that might be headed their way.

But Maya steps down the remaining stairs and moves around her mother's hand.

She doesn't need the comfort, or the protection.

"You made her feel like she was wrong. Those papers Grampa gave me?" Maya pulls a piece of loose leaf paper from the pocket of her sweatshirt and holds it up. But she doesn't need to look at it to quote it.

"I was out in the yard today with my girls, and Maya told me that when she grows up, she wants to be a knight, and carry a sword," Maya almost grins at this. Maura can practically see her saying it as a toddler.

"I told her that was just fine with me, as long as she was a kind knight, and a good person. She looked at me like I was insane, and I realized. She _hasn't learned how to hate yet._ She turns four tomorrow. I hope she's forty four before she knows."

Jane grins, even though she looks like she might be on the verge of tears.

"She would _love_ our family," Maya says. She looks at Maura, and when the doctor holds out her arms, she steps into them without hesitation. "She's our mom, and she would _love_ us, if she were here."

Maura nods. "I love you so much," she whispers into Maya's hair.

and Maya takes a breath. She lowers her chin like her mother would, and she looks her grandmother in the eye, like her mother would, and she makes sure to speak very clearly so that there can be no mistake.

Just like her mother would.

"I don't want to go with you," She says. "I want to spend the last weekend of Summer with my family."

Upstairs, waking from her nap, A tiny voice calls down the stairs to her sister. The person who is always there when she wakes up.

"My-My! I'm 'wake! Come get Katie!"

Maya grins. She turns away from her grandparents without another word. She leaves the good-byes for her sister, and Maura suspects the does it on purpose.

Zoe looks positively giddy, and she opens her mouth.

"I think," she says happily, "that maybe you guys should go."


	6. Redux

_There is a baby in her office._

 _No. Maura immediately rephrased, standing frozen in her doorway. There is a toddler - no, a_ _child_ _\- in her office._

 _Maura turns and looks behind her, hoping to see a harried mother coming around the corner, but the hallway is as empty as it was 15 minutes ago._

 _She turns back to her office. The child is still there._

" _Ah, excuse me," Maura says finally, aware that she is about to ask a six year old permission to enter her her own space. "Can I help you?"_

 _The girl turns, unafraid. "Nah," she says casually. "Just lookin."_

 _Maura raises her eyebrows. "How did you get in here?" she asks, taking a step forward. "T-this is my office."_

 _The girl still seems unbothered. "Well, you didn't lock your door," she says conversationally. "When grown ups don't want you in, they lock the door."_

 _Maura is not read for a conversation of this nature. It is 6:30 in the morning, and she was under the impression that she was the only person in the morgue. She finally gives up trying to make sense of the situation, and removes her coat._

" _What's your name?" she asks, moving to hang it up._

" _Zoe. What's yours?"_

" _Maura. Isles."_

" _The doctor on this plate?" Zoe points to one of Maura's awards, sitting on her desk._

" _Yes," Maura says, smiling despite herself. "That's not a plate, it's an award. You're a good reader."_

" _It keeps me out of my moms hair," Zoe says. "My sister taught me."_

" _I see," Maura says seating herself at her desk. "And where - ah - where are your sister and mother now?"_

" _Upstairs. Mom's trying to ditch me."_

 _Maura frowns, despite the nonchalant way Zoe relays this information._

" _I'm sure that's not true," she says. "Are they meeting with an officer?"_

" _Yeah. But I went invis'ble and leafed out."_

" _Left," Maura corrects without thinking._

 _Zoe shakes her head. "No," she says. "I leafed." she watches Maura's face for comprehension, and then sighs heavily. "I made like a tree?" she tries._

 _Maura stares at her, starting to wonder if she's real or simply a manifestation of her over tired brain._

 _but then there is the pounding of shoes, and detective Barold Frost comes running around the corner._

" _Dr. Isles," he pants. "You haven't seen a-" but he cuts off as he sees Zoe sitting in front of her desk._

" _Zoe!" he says, bending to put his hands on his knees. "Jeeze. I've been looking everywhere."_

" _Busted," Zoe whispers. "Hey, Uncle Frost. I'm right here."_

" _You can't keep wandering off without telling anyone where you're going."_

 _Zoe shrugs, sliding off the chair. "Well it's not wandering," Zoe replies. "I know where I am when I show up."_

 _This logic catches Maura just right, and she laughs before she can catch herself._

 _Zoe shoots her an adorable, mischievous grin._

" _I'm sorry, doctor," Frost says, holding out his hand. "She got away from me."_

" _No harm done," Maura says with a smile. "It was nice to meet you, Zoe."_

 _Zoe nods, taking Frost's hand and letting him lead her out the door._

" _See you round, Dr. Isles."_

 _It's almost ten minutes later when the doctor looks up from her desk, the pub clicking, finally, in her brain._

 _Make like a tree and...oh!_

" _Leaf!" Maura says aloud._

 _She smiles. What a clever little girl._

 _._

 _She sees the girl, Zoe, again, several times in the next few days. She sees her sister too, usually in the care of Detective Frost, or sometimes barely clinging to the hand of a harried woman who is pulling them from_

 _the station._

 _Frost begins to check the morgue first, usually catching Zoe pestering a tech, or poking at some of the medical equipment._

 _Maura catches snippets of gossip about the children, stockpiling them for quiet nights at home, when she can knit them together into some kind of narrative._

 _Zoe and her older sister, Maya, are the children of a Boston raised, Chicago detective who passed away just as Maura began her job as Chief Medical Examiner. If she thinks about it, she can remember the ripple of grief that murder had caused in the precinct, especially among Frost._

 _These are Detective...Rizzoli's children, and Frost is...what, their guardian? Why has it taken so long for him to obtain custody, then? Maura finally caves in and looks up the case online._

 _Three years ago, she was right, more grisly than she'd remembered. A home invasion turned murder, that left Jane Rizzoli and serial killer Charles Hoyt dead._

 _Survived by her wife and two children._

 _A wife. Maura hadn't seen that coming. She leans back, more confused before._

" _You got a hard one?" a voice asks at the door. "I'm good at sounding words out if you need help."_

 _Maura smiles up at Zoe, beckoning her in._

" _Does the person watching you know you are here this time?" she asks, reaching into her desk drawer._

" _I told Maya," Zoe says. "Hey, Mo, how old are you?"_

 _Mo? Maura watches the girl settle in the chair by the desk. "It's not polite to ask when an adult's birthday is, Zoe. And what is it you called me?"_

" _Mo," Zoe says again. "Like Maya calls me Zo...when she's being nice. So I thought you'd like a nickname?"_

 _Maura opens her mouth to say no thank you, and then shuts it again._

" _I'm 37," she hears herself say._

" _That's older than my Mom by one year," Zoe says. "And almost my age, kind of."_

 _Maura raises her eyebrows, caught off guard. "I don't follow," she says._

" _Oh, my birthday is next week," Zoe says. "I'm gonna be seven."_

" _Ah!" Maura says. "Yes, I see the connection. Well then this is appropriate, I suppose."_

 _Maura hands over the object she'd pulled from her desk. A three book box set of Nancy Drew mysteries._

" _I'm not sure if these are still popular," she says, wondering what it is about the child in front of her that disarms her so. "But I adored them as a child and-"_

 _But Zoe has leaned forward, her hands on Maura's desk. "Woah!" she says. "Cool! can I borrow one?"_

 _Maura looks up at her sharply. Something about her unassuming, genuine excitement has caught in the doctor's throat._

" _N-no," she says thickly. "These are for you, darling. To keep."_

 _Instead of looking more excited, however, Zoe looks cautious. "How come?" she asks finally._

" _Because…" Maura hesitates._

 _She had heard the Zoe's mother snap at her yesterday, telling her to find something to keep her out of her hair._

" _Because I heard you peppering poor Detective Frost with your mystery questions," she says, which is also true. "And I thought you might like some mysteries of your own."_

 _That does it. Zoe's dimpled smile appears once more._

" _Yeah," she says, genuine. "Pretty much! Thanks, Mo."_

" _You're very welcome."_

 _._

 _Maura is on her way to the bullpen when she hears the yelling. She's been invited to have some birthday cake for Zoe's birthday, and she's smiling to herself, fingering the bow on a newly wrapped set of books, when she hears Barold Frost's voice rise._

" _Kate," he's saying. "Kate, please. She's just a kid."_

" _Right. she's just a kid. Now's better, Frost. You think I_ _like_ _being a fucking asshole to my own fucking-"_

 _Maura stops, heart pounding. The voices are coming from an open interrogation room to her left. She will have to pass it to get to the party._

" _I think Katherine is doing the right thing," another female voice says. "If she can't care for her children properly-"_

" _That's not what she's saying," Frost cuts in. "Forgive me, Angela, but that's not what she's saying. Kate, you're perfectly capable of taking care of her. You're choosing not to."_

" _She's always in trouble. Always wandering off. Do you even know where she is right now? Last week she got into the warehouse at Wal-Mart. Made me two hours late._

" _She wants your attention," Frost says. Maura has never heard him sound so furious. "She wants to know you're paying attention to her."_

" _Jane was always sneaking off at her age-" the second woman begins, but Kate cuts her off harshly._

" _Don't talk about Jane," she says. "Don't tell me what she was like. I know all about what she was like."_

" _If that's true then you'd know that what you're proposing is the worst betrayal you could commit," Frost says lowly. "Splitting your family. Not raising your child. Telling a kid on her birthday-"_

" _JANE BETRAYED US!" Katherine shouts. "Jane broke up her_ _family_ _. Jane left me! She's dead, Barry. You try looking in her face every fucking day and knowing that's still true."_

" _That's not Zoe's fault. Or Maya's. Kate-" Frost sounds almost desperate now. "Don't do this to them."_

 _Maura backs away from the door. She turns to head back to the morgue, deciding she will find Zoe later and give her her present then._

 _But Zoe is standing there behind her, teary eyes and granite jaw, looking about a hundred years old._

 _Looking so, heartbreakingly seven._

 _._

 _Maura has never comforted a peer, let alone a seven year old child whose mother is considering abandoning her._

 _But in the morgue, she drops to her knees in front of Zoe, and reaches out to cup her face._

" _She hates me," Zoe chokes out._

 _Maura cannot deny that Katherine's vitriol had been heartfelt. But, "no," Maura says softly. "I don't think that's it."_

 _Zoe looks at her, disbelieving._

" _I think," Maura tries, "I think she loved - that she_ _loves_ _\- your mother so much that it's hard for her to do anything else."_

" _My mama died when I was three," Zoe says. "I don't remember her, and mommy won't talk about her. But nona showed me her picture."_

 _Nona. The third voice._

" _I imagine you are very similar to her," Maura says. I've only seen her picture once._

" _A bad guy murdered her," Zoe says. "She was protecting us." her eyes have filled with tears again._

 _Maura pulls her into her arms without conscious thought._

" _She loved you very much, I'm sure of it."_

" _Will I have to leave my friends and Maya and school?"_

 _The fear in this question is palpable._

" _She'll send me away, Mo? For being like someone she loves?"_

…

…

 _Maura finds Katherine Hodgkins at the back booth of the diner she usually eats at when someone else is watching her kids. She walks up and slides in across from the other woman with more confidence than she feels. ignoring the squawk of protest._

" _Hey, what are yo-"_

" _Your daughter heard that selfish, childish rant you went on yesterday," Maura says without preamble. "You know. when you were supposed to be celebrating her birthday?"_

 _Kate looks at her, dumbfounded. Speechless._

" _She heard what you said, and she heard how you plan to leave her here when you return to Chicago."_

" _Look-" Katherine begins, but Maura won't let her continue._

" _I think you should go," she says coldly. "Leave her. Tomorrow, if you can manage it." she watches Katherine's eyes widen in shock. "What?" she asks icily. "You don't like hearing your plan from someone else? You want to go, then go. Take it from a woman who spent her entire life trying to be enough for her mother, the sooner you go, the sooner the people who love her can help her begin to heal."_

 _The waitress comes by, and Maura shakes her head politely at the offer of a menu. As soon as she is gone however, she turns a deadly glare back on Katherine._

" _But you should know that after realizing she was unwanted by the woman who gave her life, she came down to my office and sobbed until she fell asleep."_

 _Katherine's eyes fall to the table._

" _She asked - God the memory of it still makes me feel cold - she asked me if I would stab her with a scalpel. Katherine. look at me."_

 _Maura waits until her order is obeyed._

" _She asked me, if she was killed, like her mother, if you might begin to love her then."_

 _A tear slips down Katherine's cheek. "Jesus," she murmurs._

" _Even if I believed in him, I do not think he would rescue you from this," Maura says mildly._

 _Has she always possessed such fierce words?_

" _She…" Katherine swallows hard. "It wasn't supposed to be me," she whispers finally. "I can't do this on my own."_

" _Then don't," Maura says, not allowing herself to show a hint of pity. "Don't do it at all, for all I care. But do not force those children to pay for your shortcomings. And do not ever,_ _ever_ _,tell Zoe to get out of your hair again. Not. Ever."_

 _And then Maura stands up and walks away._

…

…

 _Frost appears in her morgue a few days after this. He sits down at her invitation but doesn't speak for along time._

" _Katherine and the girls are moving here," he says finally. He doesn't ask if she knows what he's talking about. "All of them."_

 _Maura doesn't bother to pretend she isn't relieved._

" _You said something to her," he says._

" _How is Zoe?" Maura asks, ignoring. "Maya?"_

 _Frost sighs. "It will take time, I think?" he says, his voice rising at the end as though he's asking her._

 _She nods._

" _But Kate's committed to therapy. And she got the girls in too. So. It will happen."_

" _Thank God."_

 _Frost is looking at her intensely. Studying her. "You know. we've been working on cases together for years and I barely know anything about you," he says._

" _I could say the same," Maura replies, not giving herself time to analyze._

" _Zoe says you're the awesomest one in the place."_

" _I believe she said I was the awesomest one in this_ _dump_ _, detective."_

 _Frost laughs. "Korsak, Andres and I hit The Dirty Robber on Tuesdays. Would you join us sometime?" Frost glances away, guilty. "I'm sorry I haven't asked before now."_

 _Maura waves this apology away so she won't have to comment on how much it means to her._

" _I'd love to."_

 _Frost nods, stands. He's halfway to the door when he turns back._

" _Jane made it to the OR, you know," he says out of nowhere._

 _Maura can only stare at him._

" _I met the bus at the hospital. I held her hand. She…" he pauses to gain composure. "She said all the things you say when you know you're gonna die, you know? Take care of my babies. I love them so much. I love Kat so much."_

 _Maura blinks at him, trying to find a reason for his confidence._

" _Then she just says. Tell her thank you. Tell her thank you for putting them back together." Frost rubs his head. "I didn't know what the hell she was...but she got real insistent, so I told her I would."_

 _They are silent for a long moment befor Fros speaks again._

" _Then she was gone."_

 _Maura doesn't know what to say. "I'm so sorry, Barold."_

 _Frost nods, and turns again to go. Again he turns back._

" _Dr. Isles?"_

" _Yes?"_

" _Thanks."_


	7. Rest

"Hey! Hey! Are you okay, sweetie?"

The woman squatting in front of Katie has darkish blonde hair, and light, warm eyes.

Katie sniffs. "Yeah," she says, wiping a stray tear.

"Are you sure?" the woman straightens up as Katie does, the corners of her eyes are wrinkled in concern.

"Yeah," Katie repeats. She looks around for Maya or for Zoe, but no one is in sight except for the two of them.

And rows and rows of dead people.

"What's your name?" the woman asks. "Are you alone here?"

Caution tempers Katie's thoughts. Her moms have told her hundreds of times not to talk to people she doesn't know, no matter how kind or weirdly familiar they look.

"Um," Katie says slowly, "I'm...not really supposed to talk to strangers," she says, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her coat.

"Right! Shit, sorry," the woman looks away biting her lip, then back seeming to realize that she's said a swear word in front of a kid. "Shit! I mean, _crap_. _Sorry_ _."_

Katie giggles, unable to help herself. "S'okay," she says. "I've got big sisters. I've heard all the words."

The woman blows out a breath of what might be relief. She glances around them. "Where are your parents...or your sisters? That's all I came over here to ask you. Are you alone?"

Katie looks around, the despair returning to her at the realization that she is still lost. "I came with my sisters to see Mommy's grave," she says. "It's her birthday. But they left without me. Now I don't know where they are."

The woman looks like she's been punched. "Oh God, I'm sorry," she says quickly, not letting Katie explain before she goes on. "Jesus, I'm _sorry_. Yeah, a kid crying in a cemetery. Duh, Kat." She shakes her head. "Can...I help you find your sisters? Do you want to call someone?"

Something has caught Katie's attention. "Your name is Kat?" she asks, forgetting her tears.

The woman nods slowly. "Yeah," she says uncertainly.

"Mine too," Katie says. "Katherine, I mean. No one calls me Kat, though. And my mom," she says like an afterthought. "That's her name too. I'm named for her."

The woman nods, smiling faintly. "Quite the coincidence," she says. "She's buried here?"

"Yeah," Katie says looking around. "Maya and Zoe left without me, but I thought I could find it by myself…" She has to stop talking in order to swallow back tears.

"Maya and Albert are in love," she says, though she realizes after the words are out that this woman won't understand. Still, she can't help herself.

"They spend all their time together now. It was supposed to be our time to hang out. Before she and Zoe go back to school."

The woman sits down next to her on the bench, sighing sympathetically. "That can feel rough," she says.

"I thought I could find Mommy myself. To show her…" but she trails off, her motives fuzzy now that she thinks about it.

"How about I help you?" Kat says. "Only if you want."

Katie nods. She's not supposed to talk to strangers, but this woman doesn't _feel_ like one.

"Thanks."

….

 _Here are the choices: Go back or Stay._

 _Remember or forget._

 _Katherine stands in the entryway to the hall watching as Jane and Maya pack up the girls' bedroom. They are engrossed in their task, picking out things to keep and things to donate, and so they don't see that behind them, Zoe is taking apart all of their hard work, snuggling teddy bears long forgotten, and then setting them next to her like a row of party-goers._

" _Will I like Boston?" Maya asks._

" _I think so," Jane says. She sounds so tired. "I remember really liking it a lot sometimes."_

" _But sometimes no?"_

" _Yeah. But it's like that everywhere, smalls. You don't like Chicago all the time."_

" _Will Mommy be in Boston too?"_

 _There is silence. Katherine sees Zoe look up from her work to wait for Jane's answer._

" _Mommy's...memory will be with us wherever we go," she says finally. "And when we want somewhere to visit her, we'll go to see her in NYC. Remember I told you about the really pretty place where I said good-bye?"_

" _How come I had to say good-bye in Chicago?"_

 _Jane hesitates again. It was always Katherine who answered the existential questions. She crosses her arms and holds her elbows tight. If she could cry, she knows that now would be the time._

" _I...Couldn't take you guys with me, hon," Jane says offering her a doll that Kate barely remembers purchasing._

 _Maya casts it behind her, into the donate box._

 _Zoe takes it out and hugs it, pressing a kiss to its forehead the way Jane does to her._

" _But we'll go this year, okay?" Jane says. "And...any time you want to, we can go see her. Just tell me. Okay, Maya?"_

" _Okay," Maya says._

 _They turn around at the same time and make similar sounds of frustration as their eyes fall on Zoe._

" _Oh, tiny," Jane sighs, smiling despite herself._

 _Zoe smiles at her. "We keep," she says. "mine!"_

 _Jane's eyes flicker up to where Kate would be if she were really there. For a small moment, Jane's eyes widen, like she's seen something._

" _We can't keep these, Zoe," Maya says reasonably. "We're moving to Boston."_

" _Boatland!" Zoe says. "Everyone can come!"_

 _Maya sighs. "Sure, okay."_

 _Jane blinks at the doorway, still looking._

" _Yeah," Kate urges, feeling that odd, almost crying feeling again. "Yeah, It's me, babe. I'm here. I love you so much."_

 _But then Jane looks away, back down at their kids, and her real, physical eyes have tears in them._

" _I love you guys," Jane says thickly, kneeling to help Maya and Zoe repack the boxes. "You know that right?"_

" _I know," Maya says. "Actually can we keep this one?" she holds up one of Zoe's teddy bears._

 _Jane, clearly unable to trust her voice, just nods._

…

…

It's November and the cold weather is truly upon them. Katie is underdressed.

"Do you know the address of the house where you're staying?" the older Kate asks.

Katie shakes her head, feeling ashamed. "Sorry," she mumbles. "I guess Zoe's right and I am a baby."

"No," Kate says kindly. "Sisters fight. I'm sure she didn't mean it."

Katie sighs. "They're a lot older," she explains. "They're away a lot and I miss them."

"That's okay," comes the reply. "Even if they don't say it, they miss you too. I know it. How about this. How about I take you back to the front of the cemetery, then we'll see what you remember from there, okay?"

Katie nods. "Thanks for being nice and not, like, a kidnapping me...yet," she adds. The woman laughs. It reminds Katie a little of her sister, sudden and full. "Not a kidnapper," she assures the girl. "But your mom and dad are right. In general, you shouldn't talk to strangers."

She hesitates and then looks furtively at Katie. "Or, just your dad," she says quickly. " _Jesus._ Sorry."

"Moms," Katie says, smiling to show that she isn't offended.

"My mom remarried after my sisters' mom died. That's _my_ mom. But I still call my sisters' mom mine, too."

There is a silence as Kat digests this riddle. Then she smiles, bright.

"I see," she says. "That's...kind of beautiful."

Katie nods, though she's a bit unclear as to what, exactly, is beautiful about it. She shivers suddenly and, without thinking, slides her hand into her companion's. It seems for a moment that Kat is going to jerk her hand away. But then she looks down at Katie, and her face gets soft.

"You cold?" she asks quietly.

"A little," Katie admits.

Kat pulls her hand away and unloops the scarf from her neck. "Here you go," she says.

The material is warm from the other woman's skin, and soft.

"Thanks," Katie says.

They walk in silence

…

…

 _She cannot go back._

 _It is hard for her to come to the decision, not because she thinks it is the wrong one, but because the remnants of the life proposed are still clinging to her like droplets of water._

 _Sickness and suffering so real that she could taste it._

 _The war of devotion and disgust ever-present in her chest, never ceasing for even a moment._ _Strangers_ _were kinder to her children than she could allow herself to be, and the knowledge fills Kat's ghost body with a foggy, second-hand chill._

 _She is not angry, and she's not jealous, not really. She is just sad, and she understands that what she has seen is the truth._

 _Her children, wide-eyed and needy, watching her cry in front of the television. Watching her swear at her mother on the phone, watching her put her finger in the face of a Wal-Mart cashier for asking "how are you?" on a day when she was lower than low._

 _God, how unprepared she was to be alone with the two of them…_ _so_ _small!_

 _How selfish and painful and no…_

 _She would not go back and force her wife to watch this. To endure it. The last thing Katherine does for her family is to stay. If there can only be one of them that comes out of it alive. If it_ _really_ _is left to Kat to choose… well, then she does what she has always done._

 _What she will choose until it is no longer within her power to do so._

 _She chooses Jane._

 _She chooses to stay, and the days drift by like the winding of movie tape until she cannot discern one from the next. Her family packs, and moves._

 _Moves again._

 _Jane falls asleep with tears on her cheeks. She punches the walls of the shower so hard that her knuckles split open and turn the water pink. She puts a picture of the two of them under her pillow when she sleeps. She tells both children that the word "hero" is a bad one._

 _But Jane also drops them off and picks them up from school. She takes them to the playground and pushes them higher and higher until they seem to Kat to be laughing directly at the sun._

 _She buys them ice cream, and gives them baths, and makes funny faces._

 _She sings them to sleep._

 _She answers every single question they have about their Mommy, who's in heaven now._

 _There is a second choice coming, Kat can feel the pressure mounting in the place in her head where communication happens now._

 _Remember or forget._

 _Follow them or let them go._

 _Unlike the first decision, this answer does not come to her without difficulty._

 _Sometimes, when she's lingering in her children's room after they've been put to bed, she thinks that Zoe can see her. The toddler is half asleep, eyes falling and popping open in the endearing way that only small children have, and sometimes she will reach out her hands to the place where Kat is standing._

" _Mommy," she says. "Sing me."_

 _Kat will, not knowing if Zoe can hear her or not. And the wisp of feeling she gets when the little girl's hand brushes hers is almost all the convincing she needs. Sure, she can't be there in the flesh, but she can watch them grow. Jane has been telling them each day that she's watching over them, shouldn't she at least make good on that promise?_

 _But then the next day, Maya falls getting off of the school bus, scraping her hand along the pavement. She sits on the curb and cries for Kat, even after Jane has wrapped her in a hug. Even after both mother and sister have kissed the place to make it better._

 _And Kat thinks that staying will be torture. That it can be nothing else._

 _And then four days later, her_ _mother_ _makes up her mind._

….

….

Grown-up Kat is very easy to talk to. Katie finds herself explaining the happenings of that morning as they wind their way back to the entrance of the cemetery.

Her oldest sister, Maya, is in love with Albert, a boy they have all known their entire lives.

"My mom, like, saved his mom. She was sick for a really long time after. But she's getting better now kind of."

Kat listens intently but doesn't often interrupt, and Katie finds herself spurred on by the unusual undivided attention.

"What if she gets married and decides she wants to live out here? Or somewhere even farther?" Katie says, voicing a fear that she has not even told her mothers.

"What if she has a _baby_?"

Kat raises her eyebrows. "Would that be horrible?" she asks.

Katie hesitates, almost too embarrassed to voice the answer that's on the tip of her tongue, and Kat looks down at her and smiles gently.

"I know," she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially. " _You're_ the baby."

It is what she was going to answer. This woman has taken the words directly from her head.

"It's stupid," Katie says, feeling the tears return to her eyes.

"It's not. I understand. And I know that telling you that no one could replace you in Maya's heart doesn't really help. Even though I'm sure it's the truth."

"Sometimes I feel like I don't exist," Katie whispers. The wind is whipping, and she's sure that Kat hasn't heard her. But then the other woman reaches down and takes her hand.

"You exist," she whispers back. "And you're so, _so_ important, honey."

And it's hard to say why, seeing as how she's a stranger whom Katie met fifteen minutes ago, but the words make her feel infinitely better.

.

The entrance of the cemetery comes into view around the next little corner and Kat stops, pointing at it.

"Look familiar?"

"Yeah!" Katie says, feeling relief catch in her throat. "Yeah! I know where the house is from here!"

"Good," Kat says, sounding relieved. "Do you need me to walk you? I'm not sure if…"

But at that moment, a figure appears at the gate, blonde hair blowing wildly as her head turns each way.

"Mommy!" Katie calls, starting forward, and Maura turns toward her voice and sprints towards her.

"Anna Katherine Rizzoli Isles," She yells, pulling Katie into a rib-cracking hug. "Where have you been? We have been frantic!"

She detatches one hand from Katie to pull out her phone and press the first speed dial.

Katie hears Jane pick up after the first ring, voice tense.

"You found her?"

"I found her," Maura says, looking down at Katie as if to reassure herself. "At the entrance on Flatbush."

"Good," Katie hears her mother respond. "Bury her where she stands."

Maura laughs, though her eyes are still shiny, and when she hangs up, she pulls Katie into a hug again.

"What were you thinking?"

"I...dunno," Katie says quietly. "I thought I knew where the marker was, but then I got lost."

"Maya and Zoe will most likely need to be sedated," Maura says, turning them back towards the entrance. "Maya will have called 911 if your mother hasn't informed her."

"Really?"

Maura glances down at her. "Really," she says. "They where halfway there when Jane called to say you weren't in the house like we'd thought. They turned back immediately."

Katie lets this sink in. "Oh," is all she can think to say.

Maura squeezes her hand. "The three of you can go tomorrow," she says simply. "Together."

Katie looks up to see her mother looking back at her knowingly, but then her expression slips into one of confusion.

"Whose scarf is that?" she asks.

"Oh!" Katie says, pulling away from Maura to turn around. "It's Kat's! I met her when I was lost, and she helped me…" Katie trails off, looking back the way she came.

The pathway is empty.

"I...guess she left when she saw I was okay," Katie says slowly.

She turns back to her mother to see that Maura is staring at her, eyes wide.

No, that's not quite right, Katie realizes.

Maura is staring at her scarf.

"I was cold," Katie says, feeling the need to explain. "She gave it to me. She said-"

"It's supposed to snow early this year," Maura murmurs.

"Yeah," Katie says. She comes back to stand next to Maura, taking her hand. "Do you think we can all watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving like normal when we get home?"

Maura doesn't answer right away. She's looking back the way Katie came, and the expression on her face is hard to read.

"Mommy?"

Maura snaps herself out of whatever thought she'd been lost in and smiles down at her daughter.

"I...am sure that your mama has already put that plan into motion," she says finally. "Let's go, my love."

And they do, but not before Maura glances back up at the little path that leads away from them and breathes,

"Thank you." 

….

….

" _I want to forget," she says aloud._

 _Or maybe she doesn't._

 _Maybe there is no such thing as 'out loud' anymore, she can't be sure._

 _What she is sure of, however, is that watching Jane's discovery of her mother's theft is one of the most painful, gutwrenching things she'll ever witness._

" _I want to forget," she says - or doesn't say - again._

 _Jane is curled up in the fetal position on the bed, her long dark hair falling over her features. Kat wants to push it away from her face, to wind it around her fingers like she used to._

 _She would give anything for that feeling one more time. The loss of Jane's skin is a special torture all its own._

 _For a moment, she can only see her mother and father as they'd tiptoed through the house. Her mother's fingers tracing over her letters._

 _Her father's smile as he put the lid on the shoebox on, nodding once._

 _God! That her children might never know her. That they might never_ _hear_ _her!_

" _Take it!" she screams. "I want it gone."_

 _And then, like the slowly lifting of fog, it begins to disappear. She looks down at Jane, curled on the bed they shared, and the desire to touch her hair is rising, leaving her._

 _She smiles, bending down. "Go to sleep," she says softly._

" _Katie," Jane says softly. "Forgive me."_

 _If there is something to forgive, Kat cannot remember what it is._

 _What should the forgiveness of a dead woman matter anyway?_

 _Jane tilts her head, and for a moment they could almost kiss. Kat finds that she does not want this to happen._

" _I can't do this without you," Jane says._

 _Still, faintly, Kat knows that her world used to revolve around this woman and their children._

 _Their_ _children!_

" _Wait," Kat says. She struggles to hold onto the things she remembers. The things she knows for sure. "Wait. There was a woman. A...blonde? A doctor."_

 _She still isn't sure if she's talking. The pressure that wanted her decision, it's nearly gone completely._

" _There was a woman. She loved Zoe. Or...she could have loved her, I think. She could love all of them."_

 _On the bed, Jane shudders into tears again. She is so brave for her children, Kat knows. She will be so strong for such a long time._

" _She could love them," Kat says. "She could love Jane."_

 _Kat says, "Send her. If you can."_

" _Katie," Jane mumbles, giving herself over to her exhaustion._

" _There's no pain," Kate says gently, leaning back down. "Go to sleep and I'll tell you all about it."_


End file.
